) 

IrOLD  TALES 

OF 

W AR  TIMES 


VROLD  F.  BI 


IRVINE 


RE-TOLD  TALES 

_  -^— 

or  Little  Stories  of  War  Times  —  French 
and  Indian  Wars  —  The  Revolutionary 
War  — The  War  of  1812— The  Mexican 
War  — The  Civil  War  —  and  The  Part 
Kensington  Played  in  Them 


By  HAROLD  F.  BLAKE 


'  The  old  home-fire  where  the  red  sparks  race 
Up  the  broad-backed  chimney,  in  the  old  home  place ! 
How  far  we've  wandered  from  its  friendly  gleams — 
From  the  home-winds  singing  through  the  day's  still  dreams ! 
Wandered  weary  in  the  far,  false  lights, 
Yearning  vainly  for  the  old  home-nights — 
For  winter-silence  on  theifrost-flecked  ways 
And  the  broad-backed  chimney  with  the  home-fire's  blaze ! " 


(COPYRIGHT   1917,   BY  H.  F.  BLAKE.     ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED) 


FARMINGTON,  MAINE 

THE  KNOWLTON  &  McLEARY  CO. 
1917 


LIBRARY 

UnJv*r«»y  of 

IRVJNH 


<r- 


<J 


3     hJO 

^  °C 
EC    u 


Dedicated 

To  Those  Whom  it  Concerns  Most  — 
The  Kensington  Soldier 


TO  the  general  reader  it  can  be  said  that  this  little 
booklet  of  stories  has  been  prepared  and 
printed  largely  to  please  a  few  dear  old  friends, 
veterans  of  the  Civil  War,  who  have  asked  me  to  tell 
their  story  ;  primarily,  to  be  sure,  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  together  and  thus  making  up  a  complete 
muster  roll,  as  complete  as  is  humanly  possible,  fifty 
years  after  the  first  one  was  made  up,  of  the 
names  of  the  Kensington  men  and  boys  who  "  went 
to  the  war  "  —  always  meaning  the  war  of  1861-5. 

As  I  conceive  it,  the  story  or  stories  I  tell,  while 
they  are  to  be  retold  tales  simply,  they  will  be  the 
better  for  being  told  in  the  kitchen,  where  we  can 
sit  around  and  be  cheered  by  the  mellow  warmth  of 
the  crackling  fire  in  the  old  wood  stove  ;  and  where 
we  can  smoke  our  pipes  if  we  list,  as  in  the  days  when 
as  "  boys  in  blue  "  you,  with  your  comrades,  sat 
around  the  night's  campfire  under  the  southern  stars 
and  smoked  your  pipes  ;  and  when  in  fancy,  it  may 
be,  you  saw  in  the  red  glowing  coals,  and  in  the 
bright  upward  swirling  flames,  faces  and  forms  of 
dear  ones  in  the  far  off  homeland  —  father,  mother, 
wife,  children,  or  sweetheart;  and  though  seeing 


4  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR  TIMES. 

them,  and  your  heart  swelled,  your  lips  quivered 
and  eye  moistened,  there  was  no  faltering.  Yes,  as  it 
was  with  thee,  dear  friends,  so  it  was  with  tens  of 
thousands. 

Before  these  "  re-told  tales  "  leave  my  hands  for- 
ever and  a  day,  I  desire  to  express  my  obligations 
and  thanks  to  my  mother,  Mrs.  Mary  C.  Blake,  to 
Mr.  Weare  Nudd  Shaw,  the  "  Sage  of  Orchard 
Hill,"  to  Mr.  Joseph  N.  Austin,  to  Mr.  Benjamin  F. 
Austin,  to  Mr.  James  W.  W.  Brown,  to  Mr.  George 
A.  Baston  and  to  Mr.  John  P.  M.  Green,  all  veterans 
of  the  "  War  between  the  States,"  save  one,  and  she 
a  soldier's  widow,  for  their  kindly  assistance  to  me 
in  my  efforts  to  bring  together  the  full  list  of  names 
of  every  Kensington  man  and  boy  who  enlisted, 
donned  his  "  suit  of  blue,"  shouldered  his  old 
muzzle-loading  Springfield  rifle,  and  with  it  served 
his  country  in  the  dark  and  perilous  days,  1861-5. 

And  so,  while  I  have  told  the  tales  these  dear 
friends  have  asked  me  to  tell,  I  have  told  them,  nay, 
in  many  places  repeated  "  thought,  word  and  inci- 
dent " —  I  have  told  them  in  my  own  way.  Know- 
ing that,  though  they  have  been  crudely  told,  they 
will  please  them,  what  care  I  for  the  opinion  of  the 
literary  wise  critic  —  Nothing !  So  long  as  my 
friends  and  their  friends  shall  find  pleasure  in  them  I 
shall  be  satisfied  and  fully  compensated  for  my  labors 
in  their  preparation. 

HAROLD  F.  BLAKE. 

Montreal,  P.  Q.,  May  31,  1916. 


RE-TOLD  TALES  OF  WAR  TIMES 


IF  the  Reader  please,  perhaps  the  best  way  to  approach  the  subject 
matter,  the  excuse  for  printing  this  booklet  at  all  —  Kensington's 
story  of  the  Civil  War  —  will  be  to  tell  briefly  the  stories  of  the 
earlier  wars,  in  which  Kensington  men  and  women  played  their 
parts.  And,  therefore,  as  a  preface,  let  me  say  that  the  long,  long 
years  of  the  pioneers'  constant  warfare  with  the  Indian,  when  to  open 
up  clearings  in  the  forests  of  Hampton,  a  part  of  which  is  now 
Kensington,  for  settlement,  the  old  blunderbuss,  and  later  the  flint- 
lock rifle,  was  as  necessary  as  the  woodman's  axe;  yea,  more  so,  for 
without  the  rifle  there  could  have  been  no  axe  used.  Indeed,  we 
know  that  down  to  reliable  historical  times  the  settler,  to  defend 
himself  from  sudden  attack  and  treachery  of  the  crafty  savages,  to 
have  it  ready  for  instant  use,  leaned  his  firearm  against  the  tree  he 
was  felling.  Hence  it  was  that  generation  after  generation  of  our 
ancestors,  through  this  constant  use  of  the  rifle,  made  of  the  Ken- 
sington men  when  called  to  arms,  whether  in  defence  of  the  "settle- 
ment," the  colony,  the  State  or  the  nation,  not  only  hardy  and  zeal- 
ous but  very  efficient  soldiers.  Hence  it  was: 


I 
The  French  and  Indian  Wars,  1756-1763 

TRADITION  says  that  there  were  thirteen  men 
of  the  soil  of  Kensington  who  fought  as 
British  Colonials  under  Captain  Ebenezer  Webster 
(father  of  Daniel  Webster)  during  this  very  wicked 
and  cruel  war  between  the  British  and  French,  and 
their  Indian  allies,  the  latter  fighting  with  tomahawk, 
scalping-knife  and  poisoned  arrow ;  and  they  made 
extended  campaigns  into  New  York,  Vermont  (it  is 
now)  and  into  Canada,  and  some  of  them  were  under 


6  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

General  Wolfe  when  he  fought  General  Montcalm 
at  Quebec  and  captured  that  city  in  1759;  but  who 
these  our  townsmen  were  or  what  their  names  there 
are  no  records  to  tell  us.  This  we  do  know,  how- 
ever :  Whoever  they  were,  or  whatever  their  names, 
being  of  the  blood  of  the  English  a-nd  of  the  Scotch 
and  of  the  Irish,  and  from  Kensington,  they  would 
and  did  acquit  themselves  like  men. 

II 
The  Revolutionary  War,  1775-1782 

FROM  the  beginning  it  has  been  one  of  the  proud 
boasts  of  Kensington  that  its  people  have 
always  been  loyal,  ever  ready  to  serve  their  country 
and  its  institutions. 

And  so,  in  the  days  when  the  Colonies  revolted 
against  Great  Britain,  not  against  the  country  of  Pitt, 
Burke,  Sheridan  and  Fox,  but  against  King  George 
the  Third  in  his  crazy  attempt  to  levy  and  collect 
taxes,  taxation  without  representation,  Kensington 
raised  and  equipped  two  full  companies,  furnished 
three  commissioned  officers,  Major  Jeremiah  Fogg, 
Captain  Winthrop  Rowe,  Captain  Ezekial  Worthen, 
and  one  doctor,  Dr.  Benjamin  Rowe. 

In  all,  eighty-nine  of  Kensington's  own  sons  en- 
listed, and  to  these  she  added  fourteen  nonresidents 
which  she  was  able  to  get  to  join  the  men  composing 
her  two  companies  ;  and  thus  we  see  that  all  in  all  103 
Kensington  men  shouldered  their  old  flintlock  mus- 
kets, and  with  powderhorn  and  bullet-pouch  slung  at 
their  sides,  marched  to  join  the  forces  under  General 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  7 

Warren.  And  they  fought  with  him  at  Bunker  Hill, 
with  General  Washington  at  Dorchester  Heights  and 
elsewhere ;  aye,  from  the  very  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  to  the  end  that  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies  might  become  a  nation  of  free  and  in- 
dependent people. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  Kensington 
men  who  fought  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  103 
immortals : 

Josiah  Blake,  Hezekiah  Blake,  John  Blake,  Moses 
Blake,  Joseph  Batchelder,  Jeremiah  Batchelder,  Amos 
Brown,  Stephen  Brown,  Dennis  Bickford,  Phillip 
Blaisdell,  Edward  Clifford,  Samuel  Clifford,  Joseph 
Clifford,  Thomas  Creighton,  Daniel  Clark,  Hezekiah 
Colby,  Thomas  Cook,  Benjamin  Dow,  Jabez  Dow, 
Joseph  Dow,  Edward  Eastman,  William  Evans,  Wil- 
liam Fogg,  Major  Jeremiah  Fogg,  Joseph  Fogg, 
Nathan  Fellows,  Jonathan  Fellows,  Humphrey  Flood, 
Jeremiah  Folsom,  William  French,  William  Fernald, 
Jonathan  Glidden,  Joseph  B.  Hoyt,  Josiah  Haines, 
Jude  Hall  (colored),  Caleb  Hodgdon,  Hanson  Hodg- 
don,  Timothy  Knox,  Will  Killey,  Jonathan  Lane, 
Samuel  Longfellow,  Josiah  Locke,  Ozzum  Locke, 
Edward  Locke,  Timothy  Blake  Locke,  Nathan  Lov- 
ering,  William  Leavett,  Edward  Leavett,  Robert 
Miller  (colored),  Jeremiah  Moulton,  William  Morri- 
son, Jonathan  Mason,  John  Nichols,  Jesse  Prescott, 
Jonathan  Prescott,  Marston  Prescott,  Charles  Page, 
Aaron  Page,  Phineas  Page,  Daniel  Page,  Robert 
Pike,  Jonathan  Perkins,  Moses  Perkins,  David  Phil- 
brick,  Captain  Winthrop  Rowe,  Dr.  Benjamin  Rowe, 
Jonathan  Rawlins,  Thomas  Rawlins,  Jeremiah  San- 
born,  Jonathan  Sanborn,  Jewett  Sanborn,  Sherborn 


8  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Sanborn,  Moses  Sanborn,  John  Sanborn,  Abraham 
Sanborn,  Moses  Shaw,  Caleb  Shaw,  Caleb  Shaw,  Jr., 
Joseph  Shaw,  Abraham  Shaw,  Isaac  Shaw,  Jonathan 
Stevens,  Daniel  Stewart,  Stephen  Smith,  Edward 
Smith,  Samuel  Smith,  Benjamin  Swain,  Samuel 
Sanders,  Edward  True,  Daniel  True,  Edward  Tuck, 
Jonathan  Ward,  Melzer  Ward,  Daniel  Weare,  Josiah 
White,  Samuel  Wilson,  Simon  Winslow,  Joseph 
Welsh,  Nathan  Watson,  John  Webber,  W.  Wiggin, 
Captain  Ezekiel  Worthen,  Enoch  Worthen.1 

In  looking  through  these  one  hundred,  and  three 
names  how  many  of  them  are  familiar  and  dear  to 
us,  even  to  those  of  this  generation ;  aye,  more,  how 
proud  not  only  their  descendants  but  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  town  itself  should  be  to  read  these 
names  —  the  names  of  the  sons  of  Kensington  who 
fought  the  long  and  weary  fight  that  there  might  be 
a  new  flag,  a  new  freedom,  a  new  nation. 

If  the  reader  has  not  already  noted  let  the  writer 
point  out : 

That  of  the  103  men  enlisted  seventy-eight  of 
them  had  plain  Scriptural  names. 

That  of  the  103  men  but  three  of  them  had  middle 
names. 

That  in  two  instances  at  least  a  father  and  son  en- 
listed and  served,  namely,  Caleb  Shaw  and  Caleb 
Shaw,  Jr.,  and  Caleb  Hodgdon  and  his  son  Hanson. 

That  there  were  two  Negroes  —  and  we  wonder 
whose  slaves  they  were,  if  slaves. 


1  My  thanks  are  due  and  are  hereby  tendered  to  my  friends,  Rev.  Roland 
D.  Sawyer  and  George  Osgood,  Esquire,  for  their  courtesy  in  supplementing 
my  list  with  additional  names  of  the  Kensington  men  engaged  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  and  which  has  undoubtedly  enabled  me  to  give  a  complete 
roster  of  our  patriotic  ancestors  who  were  engaged  in  that  war. 


HAROLD  F.  BLAKE. 

That  one  family  furnished  two  officers  —  Captain 
and  Doctor  Rowe. 

That  one  family  sent  three  brothers  —  Jeremiah, 
William  and  Joseph  Fogg,  and  that  Jeremiah  was 
made  a  major  and  served  as  adjutant  with  his  regi- 
ment at  Bunker  Hill  and  from  thence  throughout  the 
war. 

It  is  probable  that  there  were  other  fathers  and 
sons  and  brothers  who  served  gallantly  throughout 
the  war  with  credit  to  themselves  and  to  the  honor 
and  glory  of  their  town,  as  every  man  did. 

Another  proud  boast  of  Kensington  is :  It  never 
produced  a  Tory. 

It  will  be  a  surprise,  no  doubt,  to  most  of  my 
readers  to  learn  that  twenty  Tories,  by  order  of  Gen- 
eral Washington,  were  sent  from  New  York  state  to 
Kensington,  and  there  kept  as  prisoners  of  war  during 
many  months  of  our  War  for  Independence,  but 
such  is  the  fact.  The  names  of  these  prisoners,  and 
the  names  of  the  Kensington  men  and  woman  in 
whose  custody  they  were  placed  were  as  follows : 

These  five  prisoners,  Daniel  Bedel,  John  Vande- 
burg,  Jonathan  Dewell,  Henry  Vandeburg  and  Balc- 
tis  VanKleuk,  were  placed  in  the  custody  of  Nathaniel 
Weare. 

These  three,  Timothy  Dewell,  Silas  Dewell  and 
Robert  Dewell,  were  placed  in  the  custody  of  Jona- 
than Purington. 

These  four,  Jacob  Sharpston,  Derk  VanVleet, 
Hugh  Vosher  and  John  Degroaf,  were  placed  in  the 
care  and  custody  of  Winthrop  Rowe. 

These  two,  Henry  Younghome  and  Courtriet 
Smith,  were  placed  in  custody  of  Nathaniel  Healey. 


10  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

These  four,  George  Peters,  EHas  Doty,  Peter  Van- 
deburg  and  Solomon  Eltinge,  were  placed  for  safe 
keeping  with  the  "  Widow  Do\v."  (It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  whose  widow  this  brave  and  patri- 
otic woman  was.) 

These  two,  John  Schaffelt  and  Casper  Rowe,  were 
the  prisoners  kept  by  Benjamin  Moulton. 

And  thus  we  see  that  not  only  did  our  beloved 
town  send  103  of  her  patriotic  sons  to  help  make  up 
the  Continental  army,  but  kept  twenty  Tory  prisoners 
within  its  borders  during  the  war. 

Knowing  the  dire  needs  for  money,  and  the  utter 
lack  of  it  in  the  hands  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Colo- 
nies during  the  entire  length  of  the  war,  may  we  not 
wonderingly  ask  who  it  was  that  paid  for  the  "  keep  " 
of  these  Tory  prisoners?  There  are  no  records  to 
show  the  payment  of  any  such  bills,  and  if  paid  at 
all,  payments  were  made  in  Continental  money,  which 
was  not  worth  the  paper  it  was  printed  on,  though 
it  was  redeemed  many  years  after  the  war.  Patriots, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  men  of  Kensington  were,  and 
the  presumption  is  and  it  's  the  writer's  opinion  that 
these  five  well-to-do  farmers,  including  the  Widow 
Dow,  kept  these  Tory  prisoners  at  their  own  expense, 
and  in  doing  so  showed  their  patriotism  and  served 
their  country  as  disinterestedly  as  did  their  neighbors 
and  townsmen  who  served  in  the  army. 


I 


Ill 
War  of  1812 

N  the  fall  of  1814,  during  our  "  second  war  "  with 
Great    Britain,    seventy-two    men   belonging  to 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  11 

one  of  the  militia  companies  of  Kensington,  under 
command  of  Captain  Stephen  Brown,  being  fully  ac- 
coutred and  equipped  (those  were  the  days  of  real 
preparedness),  marched  through  Exeter,  Stratham 
and  Greenland  to  the  defence  of  Portsmouth ;  but 
the  enemy,  while  appearing  in  force  off  Portsmouth 
when  the  alarm  was  sent  out  to  the  militia  of  the 
State,  having  suddenly  withdrawn,  our  gallant  men 
at  once  returned  to  their  homes. 

Speaking  of  the  march  of  Kensington  men  to  the 
defence  of  Portsmouth,  "Orchard  Hill"  tells  us  in 
the  Exeter  News-Letter  that  "  In  September,  1814, 
Governor  John  Taylor  Gilman  called  out  the  militia 
to  go  to  Portsmouth  as  a  squadron  of  British  war 
vessels  were  off  our  coast.  A  company  from  our 
town,  Captain  Stephen  Brown  commanding,  was 
called  on  for  seventy-two  men.  They  were  out  only 
fourteen  days.  Other  towns  sent  later.  One  of  our 
men  who  was  called  for  was  afraid  to  go  and  hid  in 
his  father's  barn,  but  was  found  after  three  days  and 
sent  to  Portsmouth." 

"  In  1855,  Congress  passed  a  law  giving  every  sol- 
dier who  served  fourteen  days  in  the  War  of  1812  a 
quarter  section  of  land,  160  acres.  This  man  who 
actually  served  but  eleven  days  was  not  entitled  to 
it,  but  he  employed  Ira  Blake,  Esq.,  to  help  him  to 
get  it.  Mr.  Blake  argued  thus  with  the  War  De- 
partment :  That  seventeen  miles  was  a  military  day's 
journey  and  as  Kensington  was  twenty  miles  from 
Portsmouth  that  would  give  the  man  two  days  going 
and  the  same  returning ;  four  days,  added  to  the 
eleven  days  he  served,  made  a  day  to  spare.  So  the 
man  got  his  quarter  section  of  land  and  later  sold  it 


12  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

for  $160.00.  Another  Kensington  man  who  went 
down  with  the  company  died  before  this  law  was 
passed,  but  his  three  minor  children  drew  his  quarter 
section  and  later  sold  it  for  $100.00."  And 
thus  the  Government  recognized  the  sturdy  men  of 
Kensington,  who  had  again  served  their  country  in 
time  of  war. 

The  reader  will  note  that  "  other  towns  sent  later," 
which  fact  enables  me  to  point  out  that  Kensington 
was  always  first  and  foremost  in  every  forward  move- 
ment. 

As  for  the  names  of  those  of  our  ancestors  who 
thus  served  their  country,  as  the  old  rhyme  had  it: 

"  Here  follow  the  names  of 

The  Kensington  militia  men, 
Who  marched  to  Portsmouth, 
And  then  back  again." 

Stephen  Brown,  captain,  Dennis  Bickford,  John 
Ward,  Samuel  Smith,  Timothy  Knox,  John  Nocolle, 
Thomas  Rawlins,  Joseph  Brown,  Nathan  Watson, 
John  Webber,  Hezekiah  Colby,  Edward  Eastman, 
Edward  Leavett,  Samuel  Wilson,  Timothy  Knutes, 
Samuel  Sanders,  John  Mason,  Charles  Page,  William 
I.  Killey,  Samuel  Winslow,  Philip  Blaisdell,  Edward 
True,  William  Fernal  French,  Daniel  True,  Zacheus 
Roberts,  Jotham  Milliard,  Robert  Forsaith,  Samuel 
Lamprey,  Stephen  Kimball,  Benjamin  Prescott, 
David  Prescott,  Nathan  Dow,  Caleb  Brown,  John 
Nudd,  Jeremy  Batchelder,  Jonathan  Hobbs,  John  M. 
Shaw,  Samuel  Fellows,  Lewis  Gove,  Joseph  D.  Wad- 
leigh,  Nathaniel  Fellows,  Smith  Lamprey,  Gilman 
Lamprey,  Newell  Dow,  Wadleigh  Dow,  Sewell  Dow, 
Lewis  Vesey,  John  Weare,  Joseph  Poor,  Robert 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  13 

Rowe,  Gardiner  Green,  Samuel  Tuck,  John  Wad- 
leigh,  Benjamin  Moulton,  Abel  Page,  Daniel  Pres- 
cott,  Abraham  Rowe,  Oliver  James,  Sewell  Locke, 
Porter  H.  Wilson,  Joel  Lane,  John  James,  John 
Page,  Moses  Sanborn,  William  H.  Wadleigh,  Sewell 
Wadleigh,  Jeremiah  Wadleigh,  Ira  Fellows,  John 
Blaisdell,  Joseph  N.  Healey  —  seventy-two. 

In  looking  through  the  names  of  the  men  who 
served  their  country,  both  in  the  Revolutionary  War 
and  the  War  of  1812,  our  rolls  of  honor,  how  familiar 
and  dear  many  of  them  are ;  and  precious  memories 
they  will  ever  remain  to  their  descendants  and  to  the 
citizens  of  the  town.  Yes,  they  will  so  remain,  for 
we  see  there  enrolled  the  names  of  the  very  best  of 
the  old  Kensington  families,  families  belonging  to 
the  very  soil  itself,  and,  like  it,  of  the  best. 

IV 
Mexican  War,  1845-1848 

THE  Mexican  War  was  not  altogether  popular  at 
the  North  at  the  time,  though  to-day  all  his- 
torians agree  that  it  was  not  only  justified  from  a 
moral  point  of  view,  and  added  not  only  a  vast 
area  of  territory  to  our  already  large  domain  but  it 
also  added  tremendously  to  our  national  wealth  as 
well  as  to  our  political  strength  at  home  and  abroad. 
As  to  Kensington's  participation  in  this  war,  so  far 
as  the  records  show,  or  memory  serves,  Ferdinand 
L.  Blake  and  John  V.  Hodgdon  were  the  only  two  of 
our  men  to  take  part  in  it.  Mr.  Blake  enlisted  at 
the  age  of  twenty  and  served  in  the  infantry  under 
General  Franklin  Pierce,  afterwards  President  Pierce, 


14  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

throughout  the  war,  and  was  honorably  discharged 
at  its  close.  His  discharge  papers  from  that  service 
are  to-day  precious  heirlooms  in  the  family  of  the 
writer. 

Mr.  Hodgdon  served  in  and  was  honorably  dis- 
charged from  the  navy.  And  thus  we  see  that  in 
our  Nation's  third  war  the  sinew  and  strength  of  the 
young  manhood  of  the  soil  of  Kensington  bore  its 
share  in  the  hardships  of  war. 


The  Civil  War,  1861-1865 

AT(the  outset  let  it  be  said  that  while  the  state- 
ments   made    in    this  war  story  may  not  be 
strictly  accurate  as  to  names  (though  I  believe  they 
are  mainly  so),  the  general  statements  made  are  in 
all  essentials  historically  correct. 

As  to  political  conditions  in  Kensington  and  in  our 
part  of  the  country  generally  just  before  the  war  was 
declared,  I  think  that  it  can  be  said  with  truth 
that  previous  to  April  14,  1861  there  were  un- 
doubtedly very  large  numbers  of  men  belonging  to 
both  parties,  who  believed  that  if  there  was  to  be  an 
intercivic  war  it  would  simply  be  a  political  war 
largely  brought  about  by  the  anti-slavery  agitators 
of  the  North  and  the  "  fire-eaters  "  of  the  South,  and 
anyhow  it  would  soon  be  over.  We  remember  that 
Seward  and  Greeley,  and  even  the  newly  inaugurated 
president  said  it  would  not  last  three  months.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Lincoln's  call  for  "  75,000  three 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  15 

months  men "  shows  that  the  war  was  not  at  first 
taken  very  seriously. 

In  the  beginning,  democrats  and  republicans  alike 
blamed  both  of  the  above  types  of  ultra  rabid  par- 
tisans for  the  cause  of  the  bitterness  existing  between 
the  people  of  the  North  and  the  South  at  the  time 
of  the  inaugural  of  Mr.  Lincoln  on  March  4,  1861. 

Hence  it  was  that,  during  the  year  1860  and  the 
early  part  of  1861,  there  were  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  in  the  North,  who  said :  "  If  there  be  war,  let 
the  hot-headed  politicians  who  are  causing  it  do  the 
fighting;"  and  these  things  were  said  in  no  mean 
party  spirit,  but  in  all  sincerity,  and  without  thought 
of  disloyalty  to  the  Government.  But  when  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  through  General  Beauregard, 
struck  the  first  blow  at  Fort  Sumter  on  April  4, 1861, 
forty-one  days  after  the  inauguration  of  President 
Lincoln,  then  it  was  not  a  question  of  party  but  of 
patriotism  all  through  the  North,  and  in  no  section 
of  the  State  or  country  was  this  sentiment  more  in 
evidence  than  in  Kensington. 

As  I  have  stated  elsewhere,  politics  was  always 
first  and  foremost  in  all  matters  of  a  public  character 
in  Kensington,  and  so,  while  the  democrats  were 
"  Union  "  men,  and  with  Andrew  Jackson  believed 
"  That  the  Union  must  and  shall  be  preserved,"  they 
waited  through  the  year  1861  for  the  republicans, 
who,  it  seemed  to  them,  being  supporters  of  Lincoln, 
should  take  the  initiative,  shottldbe.  the  leaders  in  any 
movement,  looking  to  concerted  or  formal  action 
necessary  to  get  any  considerable  number  of  our 
townsmen  to  enlist  for  the  war.  The  result  of  this 
waiting  was,  that  the  leaders  of  neither  party  took 


16  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

any  steps  to  this  end  until  early  in  the  summer  of 
1862.  Even  then,  as  a  historical  fact,  no  steps  were 
taken  publicly  until  several  private  conferences  had 
been  held  by  the  democrats,  and  which  resulted  in  the 
calling  of  a  public  meeting  to  be  held  in  the  town- 
house.  This  meeting  was  largely  attended ;  the 
question  of  enlistment  was  thoroughly  gone  into,  and 
especially  as  to  what  part  Kensington  should  take  in 
putting  down  the  rebellion. 

In  passing,  it  should  be  said  to  the  everlasting 
credit  of  the  democrats  who  attended  this  first  or 
preliminary  meeting  that,  while  it  was  primarily  a 
meeting  of  democrats  and  in  their  hands,  they  were 
not  there  as  party  men  to  talk  politics,  but  patriot- 
ism ;  to  see  what  they  ought  to  do  in  that  dark  hour 
of  the  Nation's  peril.  They  met  to  act  in  the  spirit 
and  in  harmony  with  the  broad  statesmanship,  the 
noble-minded  and  great-hearted  patriotism  that  had 
already  been  taken  by  their  late  presidential  standard- 
bearer,  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 

And  so,  the  consideration  given  this  great  and 
momentous  question  at  this  meeting  by  these  men 
was  a  serious  one ;  it  was  discussed  soberly  and 
solemnly,  for  all  realized  that  the  decision  to  be  made 
by  them  was  bound  to  affect  not  only  the  men  of 
the  town  as  a  whole,  but  no  one  could  tell  or  foresee 
how  vitally  it  might  affect  each  one  as  an  individual. 
And  so,  the  question  in  all  its  phases  was  thoroughly 
gone  into,  and  when  all  who  chose  to  speak  had 
spoken,  on  motion  it  was  voted  "  That  Ferdinand  L. 
Blake  be  and  is  hereby  authorized  and  instructed  to 
go  to  Concord  to  confer  with  Governor  Berry  to  ad- 
vise him  that  the.  voters,  in  the  town  of  Kensington 


FERDINAND  L.  BLAKE 

RECRUITING  OFFICER 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  17 

in  meeting  assembled  had  voted  unanimously  to  do 
all  they  could  to  help  preserve  and  maintain  the 
Union,  and  that  it  was  the  sense  of  the  meeting  that 
the  said  Blake  should  be  appointed  a  recruiting  offi- 
cer to  enlist  such  men  for  the  war  as  might  be  avail- 
able." 

This  motion  was  also  carried  unanimously,  no 
doubt  largely  because  Mr.  Blake  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  served  under  General  Franklin  Pierce  through- 
out the  Mexican  War,  and,  therefore,  presumably 
knew  something  about  real  war.  But  I  think  there 
were  other  reasons  why  he  was  thought  to  be  the 
best  man  to  handle  the  matter.  He  was,  and  always 
had  been,  one  of  the  leading  democrats;  had  been 
postmaster  under  two  presidents ;  was  known  of  all 
men  to  be  eminently  fair  and  just;  was  respected 
alike  by  both  political  friends  and  opponents  ;  a  man 
of  wide  reading,  and  in  the  prime  of  life.  With 
these  credentials  Mr.  Blake  went  to  Concord  to  see 
the  governor,  and  who,  we  may  be  sure,  was  glad  to 
welcome  him,  once  he  was  advised  of  the  object  of 
his  visit.  Hence,  it  followed  that  as  soon  as  the 
official  wheels  could  be  made  to  turn  the  commission 
was  made  out  and  signed  by  the  governor,  and  Mr. 
Blake  returned  to  Kensington,  a  recruiting  officer, 
the  first,  so  far  as  the  writer  has  knowledge,  ap- 
pointed in  the  county. 

Our  recruiting  officer  at  once  called  a  public  meet- 
ing. At  this  meeting  a  large  number  of  men  of 
military  age,  belonging  to  both  parties,  attended,  and 
many  enlisted  the  first  afternoon  and  evening,  more 
the  second  day,  and  still  more  the  third  day.  The 
total  number  of  enlistments  exceeded  their  most  san- 


18  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR  TIMES. 

guine  expectations,  and  I  repeat  that  there  were  no 
party  men  at  these  meetings;  all  were  Union  men 
and  patriots.  Yes,  as  Douglas  felt  honored  in  the 
holding  of  Lincoln's  hat  while  he  took  the  oath  of 
office  and  later  delivered  his  first  inaugural  address, 
so  the  Kensington  followers  of  Douglas  stood  ready 
and  willing  to  help  hold  up  the  hands  of  the  presi- 
dent in  his  efforts  to  maintain  the  Union. 

I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  several  times  that 
Kensington  was  always  foremost  in  Leadership  in  the 
towns  of  Rockingham  County,  and  so,  in  this  matter 
of  the  enlistment  of  men  at  the  time  of  the  Civil 
War  we  see  the  same  spirit  of  leadership  manifested. 

NOTE  —  While  I  am  drawing  almost  entirely  from  memory 
(being  hundreds  of  miles  distant  from  any  possible  data)  in  prepar- 
ing this  reminiscent  story,  I  wish  to  record  this  fact :  Kensington 
sent  the  largest  percentage  of  native  soldiers  to  the  war  per  capita  of 
population  of  any  town  in  the  State.  I  have  no  records,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  there  are  none  available  to  substantiate  this  statement,  but 
I  heard  it  many  times  stated  during  the  years  immediately  following 
the  close  of  the  war  by  careful-speaking  men,  men  who  had  strong 
grounds  for  believing  to  be  true  the  statements  they  made,  and 
which  I  have  put  down  as  facts. 

As  our  own  men  enlisted  in  large  numbers  so  they 
came  from  other  towns  in  large  numbers  to  enlist: 
Foggs,  Chases,  Dows,  and  others  from  Seabrook ; 
Goves,  Prescotts,  and  Pevears  from  Hampton  Falls; 
Dana  Webster,  James  Gray,  Amos  Batchelder,  the 
three  Hale  boys,  John,  Charles  and  Kinsley,  two 
Tappans,  two  Goodrichs,  a  Swett,  a  Carter,  a 
Harden,  a  Tilton,  a  Blaisdell,  and  others  from  East 
Kingston ;  the  George  brothers,  and  others  from 
Kingston ;  and  they  came  from  Hampton,  South 
Hampton,  Brentwood,  Newton,  Hampton  Falls,  Sea- 
brook,  and  other  towns  nearby,  and  there  were  quite 
a  number  who  came  from  Exeter. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  19 

Speaking  of  Exeter :  There  came  a  man  from  that 
town,  not  to  enlist  but  to  secure,  for  his  company,  the 
Kensington  men  then  being  enlisted.  In  this  he  was 
successful,  as  he  readily  secured  the  hearty  co-oper- 
ation of  our  recruiting  officer.  I  can  see  that  young 
man,  in  my  mind's  eye,  as  he  looked  the  first  day  he 
came  to  our  town  —  young,  probably  between  twenty- 
two  and  twenty-four,  a  little  above  medium  height, 
strikingly  handsome  and  distinguished  looking,  cor- 
rectly and  spotlessly  dressed  (even  wearing  gloves), 
quick  of  speech  and  very  active  in  his  movements. 
Even  to  the  casual  observer,  though  he  were  a  boy, 
one  could  see  that  he  was  destined  to  succeed, 
whether  in  military  or  civil  life,  it  mattered  not. 
And  so  it  proved,  for  to  a  man  of  his  unbounded  en- 
thusiasm and  great  mental  and  physical  activities, 
once  he  entered  into  and  became  a  part  of  the  mili- 
tary service,  promotion  was  sure  to  follow,  and 
rapidly,  which  was  the  case.  Yes,  very  early  in  the 
war  he  was  made  a  commissioned  officer,  receiv- 
ing his  commission  for  distinguished  service.  And 
so  prophecy  proved  true,  for  this  young  man  for 
more  than  fifty  years,  not  only  in  the  army  and  its 
circles,  but  in  political  circles  in  his  home  and  in 
the  community  at  large,  town,  county  and  state,  has 
been  active  in  the  affairs  of  men,  known  and  hon- 
ored everywhere  as  Captain  George  N.  Julian  of 
Exeter. 

Unless  my  mother  and  Weare  Nudd  Shaw  re- 
member, it  is  probable  that  Captain  Julian  and  my- 
self are  the  only  two  living,  who  remember  that  he 
came  to  Kensington  in  the  early  summer  of  1862 


20  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

and  there  in  our  little  old  townhouse  secured,  as  I 
have  said,  several  of  our  young  men  for  his  com- 
pany, men  who  served  under  and  fought  with  him 
for  three  years  that  the  Nation  might  live,  not  half 
free  and  half  bondmen,  but  all  free  under  the  law. 
If  these  lines  shall  come  to  the  notice  of  Captain 
Julian  I  am  sure  that  he  will  confirm  the  facts  as  to 
his  coming  to  Kensington  for  purposes  as  I  have 
set  them  down.  And  the  writer  hopes  that  in  re- 
calling the  days  of  fife  and  drum  and  the  young 
soldier  enthusiasm  these  lines  may  bring  back  to  him 
pleasant  memories  of  the  days  when,  as  a  young  man, 
all  was  sunshine  and  roses  for  him  to  enjoy,  and  that 
in  the  retrospect  he  may  find  a  source  of  real  enjoy- 
ment to-day. 

But  to  resume  the  story  of  the  work  of  the  re- 
cruiting officer: 

Mr.  Blake  enlisted  in  all  165  men,  and  as  all  of 
the  names  of  the  Kensington  men  who  enlisted  that 
can  now  be  recalled  number  but  seventy-two  we  see 
that  ninety-three  men  must  have  come  from  ad- 
joining towns  for  enlistment.  The  complete  roster 
of  our  men  and  boys  who  were  in  the  war  of  1861-5 
is  as  follows : 

Austin,  Benjamin  F.  Blake,  George 

Austin,  Edward  P.  Blake,  Henry  T. 

Austin,  James  S.  Blake,  William  F. 

Austin,  Joseph  N.  Brown,  Addison  R. 

Baston,  George  A.  Brown,  Amos 

Batchelder,  Albert  A.  Brown,  George  H. 

Batchelder,  Charles  E.  Brown,  Ira  E. 

Blake,  Ferdinand  L.  Brown,  James,  W.  W. 


HAROLD   F.    BLAKE. 


21 


Brown,  John 
Brown,  Stephen  Henry 
Brown,  Stephen  Hoyt 
Bunker,  Thomas  R. 
Chase,  Silas 
Chase,  Warren  H. 
Cilley,  George  R. 
Collins,  John  E. 
Crosby,  Henry 
Currier,  John  A. 
Davis,  James  M. 
Dresser,  Moses  D. 
Durgin,  Daniel  E. 
Eastman,  Rufus 
Eaton,  Frank 
Eaton,  John  L. 
Fellows,  Edward  E. 
George,  Joseph  O. 
Gove,  Andrew  J. 
Gove,  Charles  E. 
Gove,  Lewis  E. 
Green,  John  P.  M. 
Hilliard,  J.  Leroy 
Hilliard,  John  T. 


Hull.  John 
Lamprey,  Samuel 
Leavett,  Jeremiah  K. 
Mallon,  James 
Morrison,  Frank 
Peacock,  Hyla  D. 
Ramsdell,  George  E. 
Rowe,  Benjamin  F. 
Rowe,  Charles 
Rowe,  George  Porter 
Rowe,  Jonathan  B. 
Rowell,  Amos 
Rowell,  Edward  M. 
Sanborn,  Harvey  D. 
Shaw,  John  H. 
Shaw,  Weare  Nudd 
Smith,  David  C. 
Spaulding,  Rufus 
Sullivan,  Dennis 
Tibbetts,  Franklin 
Tibbetts,  George 
Tibbetts,  Jonathan 
Tibbetts,  Warren  E.  V. 


Tilton,  Franklin 
Hodgdon,  Capt.  C. Warren  Wadleigh,  Frank 
Hodgdon,  John  V.  Wadleigh,  Frank  L. 

Hodgdon,  William  H.         Wadleigh,  George  A/ P. 
Hull,  Charles  E.  Walton,  William  H. 

To  the  foregoing  list  of  seventy-two  of  our  towns- 
men who  voluntarily  enlisted  we  should  add  another, 
a  list  of  the  men  who  voluntarily  sent  substitutes  and 
who  paid  a  bounty  of  $300.00  to  $400.00  to  the  men 
they  sent.  While  we  have  no  record  of  the  names 


22  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR  TIMES. 

of  the  men  they  sent  we  do  have  the  names  of  those 
who  sent  them ;  they  are  as  follows :  George  W. 
Green,  Daniel  E.  Palmer,  Josiah  Deane  Prescott, 
Theodore  K.  Mace,  Benjamin  George  Moulton,  Clin- 
ton Gove,  Warren  P.  Lamprey,  VVeare  Nudd  Shaw, 
Thomas  C.  Shaw,  Joseph  N.  Healey,  Charles  E. 
Tuck,  John  Calvin  French,  Jeremiah  Dow,  Benjamin 
F.  Levering,  Jeremiah  Milliard,  and  Cyrus  O.  Brown, 
sixteen  in  all.  Note  that  Weare  Nudd  Shaw  not 
only  went  himself,  but  sent  and  paid  another  man 
to  go. 

In  addition  to  the  seventy-two  of  our  men  who 
volunteered  and  the  fifteen  men  who  sent  substitutes, 
the  town  itself  hired  five  out-of-town  men  to  go, 
paying  a  bounty  of  $300.00  to  each.  The  names  of 
these  five  men  were:  John  Adams,  John  Ford,  John 
Wechesel,  William  Brown,  and  John  Stone.  It  is  a 
little  singular,  but  these  five  (probably  fictitious) 
named  men  are  the  only  names  of  men  that  are 
officially  on  the  records  of  the  town  as  having  been 
in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 

We  may  also  add  the  names  of  three  other 
Kensington  men,  who  had  but  recently  left  town,  that 
enlisted  elsewhere,  and  who  made  splendid  soldiers, 
namely:  Jackson  Shaw,  Frank  T.  Milliard,  and  Will- 
iam Nudd. 

A  summary  of  the  above  shows  that  Kensington 
in  this  war  furnished  : 

Native  and  resident  volunteers  72 
Native  nonresidents  3 
Voluntarily  supplied  nonresident  "  sub- 
stitutes "  16 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  23 

Nonresidents  hired  and  paid  for  by  the 

town  5 

A  total  of  96 

A  most  remarkable  showing,  and  one  that  justifies 
Kensington's  claim  for  her  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
patriotism  in  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War. 

As  a  matter  of  information  the  writer  will  say  that, 
with  a  view  of  preparing  an  accurate  official  list  of 
the  Kensington  men  who  went  to  the  war  of  1861-5, 
he  wrote  some  sixteen  years  ago  to  the  adjutant- 
general  at  Concord  to  get  such  information  as  would 
enable  him  to  prepare  an  officially  correct  record 
of  such  enlistments,  to  get  the  full  name  of  each,  his 
age  at  time  of  enlistment,  and  the  regiment  or  service 
that  he  went  into ;  but  was  not  only  disappointed 
but  greatly  surprised  to  learn  from  that  official  (see 
letter  below)  that  up  to  and  including  the  Civil  War 
period  no  such  records  were  kept  by  the  State.  But, 
whether  our  own,  or  other  towns  of  the  State,  have 
kept  records  that  show  who  of  their  own  citizens  en- 
listed, what  regiments  they  joined,  or  in  what  ca- 
pacity they  served  their  country,  I  do  not  know; 
but,  so  far  as  I  knew  or  have  been  able  to  ascertain, 
no  accurate  or  comprehensive  records  were  ever 
kept,  and,  therefore,  the  above  list,  which  I  have 
prepared  with  the  help  of  a  few  (alas !  all  too  few) 
veterans,  is  as  nearly  correct  and  complete  as  is 
likely  ever  to  be  made.  And  thus,  as  this  is  correct, 
or  essentially  so,  we  can  see  the  names  of  the  Ken- 
sington men  who  made  up  our  town's  honor  roll,  the 
men  who,  in  their  day  and  generation,  did  their  full 
endeavor  to  measure  up  to  what  President  Lincoln 
asked  the  men  of  the  North  to  do. 


24  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Yes,  true  it  is  that  Kensington  had  every  reason 
then,  and  it  has  every  reason  now,  and  will,  for  all 
time,  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  its  citizen-soldiers, 
the  men  who  fought  at  Bull  Run,  Chancellorsville, 
Chattanooga,  Franklin,  Lookout  Mountain,  Gettys- 
burg ;  at  Petersburg ;  down  through  the  Wilderness ; 
marched  with  Sherman  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea;  and 
on  scores  of  other  battlefields,  under  McClellan, 
Hancock,  Hooker,  Meade,  Burnside,  Sickles,  Custer, 
Logan ;  and  with  Farragut  on  the  seas ;  under 
Col.  E.  E.  Cross  of  Manchester,  one  of  New  Hamp- 
shire's most  famous  fighting  commanders;  others 
fought  under  Exeter's  brave  old  fighter,  General 
Gilman  Marston ;  and  they  fought  with  Sheridan, 
Sherman,  and  Grant  unto  the  end  at  Richmond  and 
Appomattox.  And  true  it  was  that  many  of  our 
boys  were,  at  different  times,  under  all  of  these  great 
leaders.  Some  were  in  Libby  Prison  ;  some  were  at 
Andersonville ;  some  never  came  home,  but  were 
buried  where  they  fell ;  some  were  laid  to  rest  in  the 
little  cemeteries  near  the  hospitals ;  others  came 
home,  but  were,  many  of  them,  physical  wrecks 
while  they  lived,  and  when  they  passed  over  and 
joined  the  greater  army  of  their  comrades  on  the 
other  side,  they  received,  and  will  always  receive,  the 
homage  of  a  grateful  people  for  the  sacrifices  they 
made  —  for  duty  well  and  faithfully  done. 

State  of  New  Hampshire, 
Adjutant-General's  Office. 
Harold  F.  Blake,  Concord,  Aug.  9th,  1900. 

Haverhill,  Mass. 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  letter  of  Aug.  6th,  is  received.  The  records  of  enlist- 
ments during  the  Civil  War  were  kept  in  such  shape  that  it  is  not 
possible  to  comply  with  your  request  for  the  names  of  the  men  en- 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  25 

listed  by  your  father,  neither  is  it  possible  to  give  a  complete  list  of 
men  from  Kensington,  the  records  of  enlistments  from  to^wns  not 
being  kept  at  all  in  the  early  part  of  the  war. 

I  should  be  very  glad  to  furnish  you  with  the  information  you  de- 
sire if  in  my  power,  and  regret  that  it  is  not. 
Very  respectfully, 

A.  D.  AYLING,  Adjutant-General. 

Before  taking  leave  of  our  dearly  beloved  and  effi- 
cient recruiting  officer,  it  may  with  truth  and  propri- 
ety be  said  that  he  was  considered  by  the  State  of- 
ficials to  have  been  one  of  the  best  who  served  the 
State  in  such  capacity  during  the  entire  war.  He 
was  offered  a  Captain's  commission  when  he  had  en- 
listed 75  men  and  a  Major's  Commission  when  he 
had  enlisted  125  men,  but  he  declined  both,  saying 
that  he  enlisted  to  go  to  war  as  an  equal  of  the  others, 
and  he  would  not  allow  preferment  to  come  to  him 
through  his  services  as  a  recruiting  officer,  though 
the  offer  came  to  him  by  the  unanimous  endorsement 
of  his  fellow  townsman.  Such  action  on  the  part  of 
our  recruiting  officer  gives  a  true  pen-picture  of  the 
sterling  qualities  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  man, 
Ferdinand  L.  Blake. 

However,  as  a  matter  of  record,  the  Governor  did 
prevail  upon  Mr.  Blake  to  remain  in  the  State  some 
ten  months  after  his  regiment  (the  First  New  Eng- 
land Cavalry,  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island 
combining  to  make  one  regiment)  went  South,  to 
continue  his  work  as  recruiting  officer,  which  he  did 
to  the  satisfaction  of  his  superiors  and  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  State. 

Yes,  my  dear  reader,  it  was  the  valor  of  the  young 
men  of  1861-5 — the  farmer,  the  shoemaker,  the  hat- 
ter, the  blacksmith,  the  carpenter,  the  chainmaker, 


26  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

the  millwight,  the  miller,  the  wagon-maker,  the  man- 
ufacturer, the  merchant,  the  banker,  the  doctor,  the 
lawyer,  the  preacher,  the  yeoman  and  the  gentleman 
that  were  merged  into  the  one  melting-pot,  from  out 
of  which  came  the  strong  and  valiant  volunteer 
soldier.  And  it  is  over  the  mortal  remains  of  tens 
of  thousands  of  such  as  these  that  there  waves  the 
little  red,  white  and  blue  flag,  which  represents  to- 
day our  whole  and  undivided  country,  made  so  by 
the  heroism  and  self-sacrifice  of  all  the  people  of  the 
North,  not  as  republicans  or  as  democrats,  but  as 
patriots  —  as  worthy  sons  of  patriotic  sires.  And 
we  must  not  forget  to  add  that  all  this,  and  even 
more,  can  be  said  of  the  self-denial  and  sacrifices 
made  by  the  mother,  wife,  and  the  children,  who 
watched  and  waited  by  the  home  fireside  with  anx- 
ious minds  and  weary  hearts  for  the  letter  or  news 
from  their  loved  ones  in  the  far  away  Southland, 
fighting,  or  maybe  dying  for  their  beloved  country, 
that  it  might  remain  what  the  great  Webster  said  it 
should  be:  A  land  of  "  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and 
forever,  one  and  inseparable." 

Aye,  gloriously  did  Kensington  do  its  share*  more 
than  its  share,  towards  the  preservation  of  the  unity 
of  the  Republic,  of  our  dearly  beloved  country,  the 
country  founded  and  established  by  Washington, 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  Sam  and  John 
Adams,  Hancock,  Hamilton,  Livingston,  Charles 
Carroll  of  Carollton,  and  our  own  Josiah  Bartlett; 
and  all  made  possible  by  the  valor  of  the  brave  Con- 
tinentals in  the  hundred  battles  of  the  Revolution. 

And  so  Time  wrought  and  Appomattox  became 
possible  because  of  the  loyalty  of  more  than  two 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  27 

million  men  of  the  North  —  men  like  our  own  kith 
and  kin  in  Kensington,  men  who  did  their  share  as 
God  gave  them  the  light  to  see  and  the  strength  to 
work,  to  fight,  to  endure  to  the  end,  as  Lincoln  said : 
"  That  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  and  for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth." 

Truly,  did  the  passing  of  Lincoln  seal  the  compact 
of  an  inseparable  union  between  the  North  and  the 
South  —  between  the  "  blue  and  the  grey"  forever. 


THE  OLD  VETERAN 

BY  ASA  FREDERICK  HOWE, 

Chaplain  Everett  Peabody  Post,  108,  G.  A.  R.,  Dep't.  of  Man., 
Georgetown,  Mass. 

A  veteran  has  passed  on,  and  the  flag  is  at  half-mast, 

On  the  post's  headquarters  at  the  Grand  Army  hall, 
From  militant  to  triumphant  he  is  "  mustered  "  at  last 

And  goes  forth  in  response  to  the  commander's  last  call. 
One  by  one  they  depart,  both  the  blue  and  the  grey, 

From  the  north,  from  the  south,  from  the  east  and  the  west, 
They  go  silently  away  as  the  hours  leave  the  day, 

They  go  down  the  horizon,  as  the  sun  sinks  to  rest. 

They  met  on  the  field  of  carnage  and  death, 

Each  brave  and  "  worthy  of  the  other's  steel," 
Year  after  year  they  fought  their  best. 

They  fought  to  the  finish  "for  woe  or  for  weal." 
They  are  brothers  now,  and  were  brothers  then, 

But  estranged  by  issues  that  "tried  men's  souls," 
Our  ship  of  state  was  a  slave-holding  pen, 

The  blue  bravely  sifted  the  dross  from  the  gold. 


28  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

The  work  was  well  done,  and  the  dross  was  cast  out 

The  union  was  saved  and  bondmen  made  free, 
Our  ship  of  state  took  a  tack  about, 

And  now  grandly  sails  on  a  peaceful  sea, 
The  blue  and  the  grey  now  march  on  together. 

Shoulder  to  shoulder,  all  facing  one  way, 
"  One  country  and  one  flag  "  is  their  slogan  forever, 

And  thus  they  will  march  to  the  musterout  day. 

Their  steps  are  growing  slow,  their  years  will  be  few, 
Let  us  honor  the  blue  for  what  they  did, 

Let  us  honor  the  grey  for  donning  the  blue, 

Let  us  march  with  the  living  and  honor  the  dead. 

Let  us  pay  our  tribute  with  the  flowers  of  spring, 
That  have  awakened  to  life  from  under  the  snow, 

Let  us  join  with  all  nature  and  devoutly  sing, — 

"  Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow." 


VI 

THE  two  following  letters  appeared  in  the  Exeter 
(N.  H.)  News-Letter,  and  I  will,  though  with 
some  diffidence,  include  them  with  the  other  war-time 
reminiscences.  Though  they  may  be  in  a  large 
measure  my  own  boyhood  experiences  I  feel  that  I 
shall  not  offend  good  taste  by  doing  so,  for  the 
reason  that  to  those  for  whom  these  tales  are  in- 
tended the  reading  of  them  may  not  be  wholly  un- 
interesting.— 

Washington  Reminiscences  of  Fifty  Years  Ago 

Montreal,  P.  Q.,  April  15,  1915. 
Editor  Exeter  News-Letter : 

Had  I  been  keeping  a  diary  fifty  years  ago  to-day, 
and  had  set  down  in  detail  the  names  of  the  charac- 
ters herein  named ;  whence  they  came ;  what  they 
were  doing,  and  why;  what  part  each  was  playing 
in  the  little  drama  being  enacted,  would  show,  if 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  29 

truly  set  down,  the  place  to  have  been  Columbia 
College  Hospital  in  the  city  of  Washington,  D.  C. 

As  affecting  this  record,  the  principal  characters 
were  Ferdinand  L.  Blake,  John  L.  Eaton  and  his 
wife,  Lois  (Badger)  Eaton,  and  myself,  a  lad  of 
about  ten  years  of  age,  and  these  four  were  all  from 
Kensington. 

The  two  men  were  soldiers.  My  father,  serving 
as  "ward  master"  in  the  hospital,  occupied  a  com- 
fortable white-washed  room  placed  at  the  end  of  a 
long  one-story  building.  In  this  room  he  lived  and 
transacted  his  official  business.  At  the  other  end  of 
the  same  building  two  beautiful  grey  saddle-horses 
were  kept  and  used  officially  by  Major  Crosby  (of 
Laconia,  N.  H.),  who  was,  at  that  time,  commandant 
of  the  hospital,  and  by  his  orderly,  John  Eaton,  I 
have  referred  to.  Mr.  Eaton  and  his  wife  occupied 
together  a  tent  of  ample  dimensions,  which  stood 
within  a  dozen  feet  or  so  from  the  above-mentioned 
building. 

For  some  months  prior  to  the  period  of  which  I 
am  writing  I  had  been  in  Washington  with  my 
father,  and  was  some  six  months,  or  more,  of  my 
stay  there  a  private  messenger  for  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  company.  Of  this  I  will  speak 
later. 

The  daily  routine  was:  At  eight  o'clock  each 
morning  Orderly  Eaton  mounted  the  major's  horse, 
and  I  his,  and  we  rode  to  the  major's  official  resi- 
dence in  the  city,  some  three  miles  distant.  The 
major  coming  down  the  steps  to  the  minute  would 
mount  his  own  horse  and,  his  orderly  taking  the  one 
I  had  ridden,  they  would  return  to  the  hospital,  each 


30  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

to  do  his  work  for  the  day  as  I  did  mine.  And 
thus  did  matters  go  on  with  me  for  several  months 
immediately  preceding  the  first  of  April,  1865. 

All  the  world  knows  that  the  month  of  April  of 
that  year  was,  is,  and  always  will  be,  one  of  great 
historical  interest  to  the  American  people,  for  it  was 
in  that  month  that  great  events  took  place,  events 
that  shaped  our  destinies  for  all  time.  The  last 
great  struggles  of  the  four  years'  war  were  taking 
place  ;  Petersburg  had  fallen,  Richmond  was  doomed, 
President  Davis  had  fled,  General  Sherman  had 
reached  the  sea,  and  yet  on  the  ninth  day  of  April 
the  world  was  startled  by  the  suddenness  of  the  news 
that  General  Lee  (the  man  of  chivalry)  had,  at 
Appomattox,  on  that  day  surrendered  the  army  of 
northern  Virginia  to  General  Grant  (the  magnani- 
mous). 

A  few  days  later  and  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston 
(another  idol  of  the  South),  surrendered  to  General 
Sherman,  the  man  of  indomitable  will  and  the  idol 
of  his  soldiers. 

And  so  the  people  were  rejoicing  everywhere 
throughout  the  North,  but  nowhere  was  there  such 
great  display  of  flags  and  bunting  as  at  Washington. 

And  so  as  Orderly  Eaton  and  I  rode  down  14th 
street  to  the  city,  morning  after  morning,  full}'  en- 
joying the  spring-like,  balmy  air  always  to  be  found 
in  Washington  at  this  season  of  the  year,  we  saw 
more  and  more  and  yet  more  flags  and  bunting. 
Hovels  and  huts  of  the  negroes,  homes  of  the  well- 
to-do,  and  the  beautiful  residences  of  the  rich  were 
all  decorated.  Everywhere  these  evidences  of  the 
people's  rejoicing  could  be  seen.  I  remember  es- 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  31 

pecially  how  that  the  White  House  and  the  great 
Treasury  building  were,  when  finished,  completely 
covered  with  our  National  colors  of  red,  white  and 
blue.  And  thus  matters  stood  in  Washington  on 
the  evening  of  April  14,  1865. 

On  arrival  home  from  my  work  that  night  my 
father  said  :  "  Well,  my  boy,  John  says  that  you  and 
I  are  to  go  with  him  to  Ford's  theatre  to-night  to  see 
'  Our  American  Cousin,'  "  which  was  being  played 
by  the  elder  Sothern,  and  Laura  Keene.  Mr.  Eaton 
being  detained  by  the  major  later  than  usual,  we  did 
not  get  started  until  late,  and  the  old  rattletrap  street 
cars  then  running  on  14th  street,  hauled  by  cranky 
mules,  seemed  to  move  slower  than  ever,  and  so  it 
was  nearly  nine  o'clock  when  we  arrived  at  the 
theatre.  Upon  enquiring  for  tickets  we  were  told 
that  all  seats  were  sold,  but  we  could  find  standing 
room.  My  father  said  that  he  did  not  feel  well 
enough  to  stand  all  the  evening  and  would  rather  go 
across  the  street  to  Grover's  theatre,  where  they  were 
playing  "  Moll  Pitcher."  And,  so,  we  went  to 
Grover's  theatre.  I  was  pleased  at  this  (we  did  not 
know  that  the  president  was  at  Ford's),  because  my 
grandmother,  when  a  young  woman,  knew  "  Moll 
Pitcher "  well,  and  she  had  told  me  many  a  story 
about  this  supposedly  fortune-teller,  but  who  was 
really  the  shrewd  and  afterwards  famous  "  spy  of 
the  Revolution,"  who  gave  valuable  information  con- 
cerning the  action  of  the  Tories  and  the  movements 
of  the  British  to  Washington,  when  he  was  at  Dor- 
chester Heights.  And  thus  it  was  that  these  two 
men  and  the  boy  from  Kensington  so  narrowly 
missed  witnessing  the  awful  tragedy  enacted  that 


32  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

night  within  fifty  yards  of  the  place  where  they  were, 
and  where  Sothern,  as  Lord  Dundreary,  brought  light 
and  sunshine  to  a  worn  and  wearied  heart — why 
they  did  not  see  John  Wilkes  Booth  limp  across  the 
stage  after  his  cowardly  shooting  of  President  Lin- 
coln. 

Our  play  must  have  ended  much  earlier  than  at 
Ford's,  as  we  heard  nothing  about  the  killing  of  the 
president  that  night.  It  was  not  until  next  morning 
when  Orderly  Eaton  and  1  riding  to  the  city,  as  was 
our  custom,  saw  flags  being  lowered  to  half-mast, 
bunting  being  removed  from  both  private  and  pub- 
lic buildings,  and  all  the  evidences  of  bright  colors 
of  the  people's  rejoicing  being  replaced  with  crepe. 
The  appalling  story  of  the  night  before  was  being 
told  in  voices  subdued  and  broken.  Few  dry  eyes 
were  seen  that  day. 

I  could  relate  pages  of  recollections  of  the  strik- 
ing events  that  followed  rapidly  one  after  the  other 
as  the  days  came  swiftly  on.  How  anxious  the 
people  were  concerning  Seward,  the  great  Secretary 
of  State,  whose  life  had  been  attempted ;  of  the 
strenuous  steps  that  were  immediately  taken  to  ap- 
prehend Booth  and  the  other  conspirators ;  how  they 
traced  the  steps  of  Booth  to  the  barn  in  Virginia, 
and  how  Boston  Corbett,  seeing  Booth  through  a 
crack,  shot  him  dead ;  of  the  capture  of  Harrold  and 
the  other  conspirators,  and  of  their  swift  trial  and 
execution ;  of  the  almost  universal  disapproval  of 
the  hanging  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  All  these  I  could  tell, 
and  much  more,  in  detail. 

You  may  allow  me  space  to  tell  further  of  how  I 
saw  the  funeral  car  that  bore  the  flag-draped  casket 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  33 

of  the  martyr  president  down  past  the  Treasury 
building  and  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue  ;  of  the  tens 
of  thousands  of  whites  and  blacks,  exalted  and 
humble,  standing  uncovered,  bowed  and  broken  with 
grief.  And  how,  but  a  few  short  weeks  thereafter, 
I  saw  what  has  ever  since  been  known  as  the  "  grand 
review"  of  our  armies  of  nearly  a  million  of  men, 
tried  and  true  veterans,  who  had  served  under  their 
idolized  leaders,  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Han- 
cock, Logan,  and  many  another  noble  leader  and 
commander  of  men ;  of  how  the  army  under  Gen- 
eral Grant,  having  only  to  come  up  from  Richmond 
and  Petersburg,  had  plenty  of  time  to  brush  up  their 
arms  and  accoutrements,  to  "  spruce  up  "  as  for  dress 
parade;  and,  therefore,  individually  and  as  a  whole 
body  they  appeared  clean  and  fresh.  These  men 
were  the  vanguard  of  the  full  three  days'  marching. 

But  of  Sherman's  men  a  different  tale  is  told. 
These  barely  had  time  to  reach  Washington  from 
Savannah  to  take  part  in  this,  the  last  great  review 
of  the  Union  armies  before  the  final  mustering  out 
of  the  service  of  the  largest  body  of  men  in  the 
world's  history  of  war  up  to  that  period,  and,  there-- 
fore, these  men  of  Sherman's  army  came  into  line  of 
march  just  as  they  had  marched  through  Georgia 
(these  "  bummers  "  of  Sherman,  as  they  were  called), 
and  we  saw  the  soldier  just  as  he  was  at  the  front. 
Yes,  we  saw  the  soldier  as  he  was,  these  soldiers  who 
had  seen  and  made  war  terrible  —  as  their  great 
commander  declared  it  to  be,  "  hell  " —  these  men  were 
the  ideal  of  the  fighting  soldier  as  they  marched  in 
their  old,  worn,  dirty  and  tattered  uniforms,  and 
many  there  were  without  uniforms. 


34  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Parenthetically  it  can  be  said  (and  I  remember  it 
well),  that  President  Johnson  and  some  of  his  ad- 
visors had  had  a  sharp  controversy  with  General 
Sherman  the  day  before  the  parade  because  he  re- 
fused to  order  his  men  to  "  spruce  up  "  for  the  great 
event,  Sherman  saying  that  his  men  had  had  enough 
of  the  iron  rules  of  war ;  let  the  day  be  a  holiday  for 
them  as  well  as  for  the  civilian ;  and  as  all  this  was 
reported  in  the  papers  the  people  liked  Sherman  all 
the  better  for  it,  and  they  showed  it  when  he  came 
riding  along  with  his  staff  at  the  head  of  his  men. 
And  that  it  might  be  the  more  realistic  his  men 
brought  with  them,  and  had  in  the  parade,  pigs, 
sheep,  cows,  goats,  mules,  turkeys,  coons,  chickens, , 
and  "  possums,"  to  show  how  they  lived  when  on 
their  march  to  the  sea. 

But  what  cheers  greeted  them  on  the  way  !  Words 
of  mine  are  inadequate  to  express  the  emotions,  the 
pentup  feelings  of  the  people  in  Washington  that 
day.  On  the  third  day  General  Sheridan,  at  the 
head  of  his  great  army  of  cavalry,  passed  up  the 
Avenue  and  over  the  same  route  in  review  as  had  the 
infantry  and  artillery  the  two  preceding  days  —  and 
it  was  over. 

All  this  I  saw  from  the  doors  and  windows  of  the 
Western  Union  Telegraph  company  building,  which 
stood  then  directly  opposite  the  main  entrance  to 
the  Treasury  building,  and,  as  I  remember,  next 
door  to  the  great  banking  house  of  Jay  Cooke  & 
Co.,  which  had  done  so  much  to  help  our  govern- 
ment in  its  darkest  days  of  financial  stress. 

But  I  have  written  enough,  far  too  much  possibly. 
Some  time  I  will  set  down  and  send  you  an  account 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  35 

of  my  experiences  as  a  special  messenger  of  the 
telegraph  company  I  have  mentioned,  and  how  as 
such  I  only  delivered  messages,  urgent  and  private,  to 
the  White  House,  often  placing  the  message  into 
President  Lincoln's  own  hands;  and  a  few  urgent  or 
confidential  messages  I  had  to  deliver  to  the  heads 
of  the  State,  Treasury,  War,  Navy,  and  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's departments. 

In  the  meanwhile,  I  hope  that  these  rambling  rem- 
iniscences of  the  long  ago  will  come  to  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  Lois  Eaton,  who,  in  the  days  of  which  I  write, 
lived  with  her  soldier-husband  in  the  tent  close  by 
the  low  one-story  white-washed  building,  occupied 
by  the  man  and  boy,  their  friends  from  the  dear 
home  town  of  Kensington,  the  dearest  and  prettiest 
town  of  any  in  the  old  Granite  State.  If  these  lines 
shall  come  to  the  notice  of  Mrs.  Eaton  I  am  sure 
that  she  will  recall  the  facts  as  here  set  down,  and  I 
hope  that  the  recollections  thus  awakened  will  bring 
to  the  then  young  wife,  the  wife  and  friend  whose 
merry  and  contagious  laughter  was  heard  through  the 
thin  walls  of  the  tent  and  enjoyed  not  only  by  the 
boy,  but  by  all  who  listened  —  may  these  recollec- 
tions be  to  her,  though  it  were  fifty  years  since,  not 
wholly  an  unmixed  pleasure. 

HAROLD  F.  BLAKE. 

VII 

Recollections  and  Experiences  of  a  Telegraph  Messenger 
Fifty  Years  Ago 

Montreal,  P.  Q.,  April  26,  1915. 
Editor  Exeter  News-Letter: 

Having    inadvertently    dated    my    "reminiscent" 


36  RE-TOLD  TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES. 

letter  April  15  instead  of  the  14th,  my  dates  were 
put  one  day  out  of  plumb,  otherwise  the  story 
printed  in  issue  of  April  23  was  correct 

In  that  letter  I  mentioned  the  fact  of  my  being 
employed  as  a  private  messenger  for  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  company  (it  may  have  been  called 
the  American  Telegraph  company),  at  Washington 
in  1864-5. 

How  it  came  to  pass  that  I  was  available  and  ready 
to  be  so  employed  may  be  of  interest  not  only  to 
the  few  who  remember,  but  to  the  general  reader, 
as  the  story  shows  how  incidents  of  trifling  impor- 
tance in  themselves,  apparently,  oftentimes  lead  to 
strange  and  even  important  conclusions  to  the  indi-t 
vidual,  though  that  individual  may  be  of  utter  in- 
significance to  the  world  about  him. 

The  story,  as  a  story,  may  be  spoiled  in  the  tell- 
ing, but  the  facts,  both  primary  and  incidental,  can 
be  set  down  as  follows : 

My  father  was  home  on  a  soldier's  furlough  in 
late  September,  1864.  Early  in  October  he  went 
back  to  Washington  and  took  me  with  him ;  Amos 
Rowell,  another  Kensington  soldier,  arranged  to  go 
back  to  Washington  with  us.  He  was  a  skilled 
musician,  and  played  in  the  band  at  the  Soldiers' 
Home  then  located  on  7th  street.  (This  was  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  summer  residence.) 

Arriving  in  Boston  we  went  to  a  hotel  and  restau- 
rant located  on  Friend  street,  and  kept  by  Moses 
Pearson,  to  get  lunch.  It  was  a  famous  eating  place 
at  that  time  and  for  many  years  afterwards.  Pearson 
himself  was  a  noted  character,  a  shrewd  and  typical 
Yankee,  if  ever  there  was  one;  he  even  wore  the 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  37 

Uncle  Sam  chin  whiskers.  Concerning  that  lunch  I 
recall  one  incident  particularly.  I  thought  it  mighty 
funny  that  Pearson  should  know  both  my  father  and 
Mr.  Rowell  so  well,  and  was  more  astonished,  as  I 
saw  from  my  seat  at  the  table,  that  he  knew  scores 
of  other  people,  who  came  in  after  we  sat  down,  just 
as  intimately,  apparently,  as  he  appeared  to  know  the 
two  men  from  Kensington. 

Many  years  afterwards,  however,  I  learned  that 
Pearson  possessed,  to  an  unusual  degree,  the  faculty 
of  appearing  to  know  personally  every  person  who 
entered  his  establishment,  and  this  art  enabled  him 
to  extend  to  each  new  arrival  what  appeared  to  be  a 
sincere  personal  welcome.  Of  all  the  mine  hosts  I 
have  ever  seen  he  best  exemplified  the  art  of  "  wel- 
coming the  coming  and  speeding  the  parting  guest." 
Parenthetically  I  may  say  that  Mr.  Parker,  the  founder 
of  the  Parker  House,  Boston,  also  possessed  this 
seventh  sense  in  large  degree.  It  is  said  of  him  that, 
standing  at  the  entrance  to  his  dining  room,  he 
would  welcome  his  guests  as  though  it  was  his  pri- 
vate house  and  as  though  each  one  was  a  friend  of 
his  family.  Capitalizing  his  art,  he  became  a  million- 
aire landlord.  He  used  to  say  that  if  he  could  per- 
sonally make  his  guests  satisfied  with  what  they  had 
had  in  the  dining  room  he  need  give  no  thought  to 
the  barroom,  as  what  was  dispensed  there  would  speak 
for  itself.  But  let  us  get  back  to  the  story  of  the 
journey. 

Arriving  in  New  York  the  next  day,  we  went  to 
the  Astor  House,  corner  Broadway  and  Vesey 
streets.  We  stopped  there  that  night,  and  in  the 
evening  went  to  Barnum's  museum,  where  we  saw, 


38  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

among  other  things,  the  "  Woolly  Horse, "  "  Tom 
Thumb,"  and  the  "Wild  Men  of  Borneo." 

The  next  day,  arriving  in  Philadelphia,  we  had  to 
change  into  cars  that  were  filled  to  suffocation  with 
all  sorts  of  people,  soldiers,  officers  and  privates,  and 
no  doubt  there  were  among  them  "  skedaddlers," 
and  "  bounty-jumpers,"  and  not  a  few  women  and 
children. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  my  own  personal  adven- 
tures began.  I  remember  distinctly  that  I  occupied 
the  seat  that  run  lengthwise  of  the  car  behind  the 
door,  and  that  piled  up  around  me  were  bags,  bundles 
and  packages  belonging  to  the  travelers  from  Ken- 
sington. 

Arriving  at  Baltimore,  the  cars  were  unshackled, 
and  each  separate  car  was  hauled  through  the  main 
streets  by  a  pair  of  mules.  It  seems  that  in  order  to 
get  seats  my  traveling  companions  had  gone  back 
into  another  car,  and  that  when  the  train  was  made 
up  again  there  were  so  many  passengers  en  route  for 
Washington  that  the  train  was  made  up  and  run  in 
two  sections,  mine  some  miles  ahead  of  that  which 
held  my  home  folk ;  but  of  this  I  knew  nothing  un- 
til we  had  nearly  reached  Washington. 

Even  with  the  doubling  up  of  train  capacity  the 
aisles  of  the  car  were  completely  filled  with  people 
standing.  Having  still  retained  my  seat  near  the 
door,  and  though  still  surrounded  with  heaps  of 
packages,  one  of  which,  I  remember,  contained  sev- 
eral of  mother's  mince  pies  (for  John  and  Lois 
Eaton),  I  was  very  comfortable  personally,  but  I 
could  see  that  there  were  many  very  weary  and  tired  ; 
one  gentleman  appearing  especially  so,  I  offered  him 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  39 

my  seat,  and  he,  with  evident  gratitude,  accepted, 
and  I  stood  up. 

As  we  neared  Washington  I  became  alarmed  con- 
cerning my  companions,  and  undoubtedly  my  face 
showed  it.  I  went  through  the  train,  but  did  not 
find  them.  It  came  on  dark  and  the  night  was  rainy. 
Both  added  to  my  distress,  which  was  not  strange, 
being  but  a  lad,  with  a  horseload  of  bundles  to  look 
after  and  going  to  an  army  post  without  password 
or  countersign,  or  even  money  to  get  on  with.  The 
whole  thing  was  appalling. 

Here  it  was  that  the  "  bread  I  had  cast  upon  the 
waters"  came  back  pretty  quick,  for  the  man  I  had 
obliged  with  a  seat  came  to  my  assistance.  He  took 
charge  of  me  and  my  traps,  loaded  me  onto  a  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  car,  paid  my  fare,  instructed  the 
conductor  to  put  me  in  charge  of  the  conductor  on 
the  14th  street  car,  which,  he  said  would  take  me 
right  to  the  entrance  gate  to  Columbia  College  Hos- 
pital, our  destination.  He  especially  instructed  him 
to  have  that  conductor  tell  the  corporal  of  the  guard 
to  let  me  into  the  guardhouse  and  thus  be  able  to 
tell  my  story,  which  all  sounded  pretty  formidable  to 
me.  Before  leaving  me,  this  kindly  gentleman  gave 
me  his  card,  and  told  me  to  call  and  see  him  after  I 
had  seen  the  sights  of  Washington,  which  I  prom- 
ised to  do.  Before  I  had  half  finished  my  story  in 
the  guardhouse  by  the  gate,  my  father  arrived,  and  I 
suspect  that  two  long  breaths  were  taken.  On  the 
morrow,  looking  at  the  gentleman's  card,  I  discov- 
ered that  his  name  was  Blatchford  and  that  he  be- 
longer1  in  Manchester,  N.  H.,  and  was  the  general 


40  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

manager  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  company 
at  Washington. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week  I  had  seen  the  sights 
of  the  city,  and  so  called  on  my  friend  in  need, 
Mr.  Blatchford,  and  he  appeared  very  glad  to  see 
me.  He  told  me  that  he  had  a  place  for  me,  if  I 
would  accept  it,  to  serve  as  a  special  messenger  to 
deliver  messages  to  President  Lincoln,  and  to  the 
several  members  of  his  cabinet,  and  to  the  adjutant- 
general's  office,  and  he  would  give  me  $50.00  a 
month.  I  went  to  work  the  next  day. 

Mr.  Blatchford,  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  gave 
me  a  note  with  instructions  to  go  to  the  White 
House,  where  I  went,  and  was  admitted  to  the  pres- 
ence of  President  Lincoln.  After  reading  the  note 
from  Mr.  Blatchford,  which  told  him  about  the  boy 
from  New  Hampshire,  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  on  a  small 
piece  of  paper  these  words : 

"  Admit  the  Bearer. 

"  A.  Lincoln." 

Handing  it  to  me,  he  said  that  some  times  it  was 
hard  work  to  get  at  him,  but  with  this  card  I  could 
reach  him  at  any  time.  However,  after  the  first 
week  I  had  become  so  well  known  to  the  door- 
keepers and  secretaries  that  I  had  no  further  use  for 
the  pass  and  laid  it  aside.  "  Pity  't  is,  't  is  true,"  but 
in  the  hurly-burly  of  the  times  it  was  laid  aside  and 
lost.  A  precious  piece  of  paper  to  own  now. 

It  was  therf,  and  it  has  remained  in  my  memory 
since,  a  most  singular  coincidence  that  the  first  per- 
son I  met  on  my  first  messenger  trip  to  the  White 
House,  was  a  young  man  .by  the  name  of  Chase,  who 
formerly  lived  in  Kensington  and  went  to  school 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  41 

there.  Though  older  than  I,  he  remembered  me, 
and  he  was  of  great  help  in  making  things  easy  for 
me  at  first. 

As  to  Chase  having  lived  in  our  town  I  only  re- 
member, and  this  but  indistinctly,  that  he  lived  with 
the  Winckly's,  who  were  next-door  neighbors  to 
Captain  Henry  Brown.  It  may  be  that  Mr.  James 
W.  W.  Brown,  his  son,  will  be  able  to  recall  the  full 
name  of  the  young  fellow,  and  how  it  was  that  he 
should  live  in  Kensington  at  all,  for  I  do  not  remem- 
ber of  his  having  relatives  there.  I  did  learn  later, 
however,  that  he  was  a  relative  of  Salmon  P.  Chase 
(afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court), 
which  probably  accounts  for  his  appointment  to  a 
position  in  the  White  House.1 

There  was  a  peculiar  circumstance  in  regard  to  the 
messages  I  delivered ;  most  of  them  came  into  the 
office  in  cypher  and  had  to  be  translated,  or,  as  they 
have  it  these  days,  de-coded,  before  delivery  to  those 
I  served.  This  probably  accounts  for  the  messages 
not  being  sent  directly  in  to  the  government  offices. 

As  I  have  now  related  the  several  incidents  that 
led  up  to  my  employment  as  special  messenger,  per- 
haps I  should  not  longer  continue  the  story,  and  yet 
I  will  venture  to  add  a  few  more  lines  to  say  that  in 
serving  as  a  messenger  as  I  did,  I  went  to  the  White 
House  often  several  times  a  day,  and  therefore  saw 
President  Lincoln  many,  many  times  during  the 
several  months  I  worked  for  Mr.  Blatchford,  and  his 


ll  have  learned,  since  writing  the  above,  that  his  name  was  Jacob,  that 
he  was  called  "  Jakey,"  and  that  he  was  a  distant  relative  of  Captain  Henry 
Brown,  that  he  lived  with  him  two  years  and  went  to  our  district  school 
during  that  time. 


42  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

features  and  figure  are  indelibly  fixed  in  my  memory 
for  all  time  that  I  shall  have  memory. 

What  became  of  Mr.  Blatchford,  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  I  don't  know. 

So  far  as  my  story  touches  the  one  great  character 
mentioned  in  it,  the  final  drop  of  the  curtain  was 
near  at  hand.  I  recall  the  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lin- 
coln alive.  It  was  several  days  after  the  surrender 
of  General  Lee,  which  meant  the  immediate  down- 
fall of  the  Southern  Confederacy;  probably  it  was 
on  the  night  of  the  12th  or  13th  of  April,  when  vast 
numbers  of  people  gathered  inside  of  the  gates  in 
front  of  the  White  House  ;  and  they  were  there  to  man- 
ifest their  joy  and  happiness  over  the  ending  of  the 
long  years  of  war  and  suffering  that  the  people  of 
the  North  and  of  the  South  had  endured  —  both 
peoples  for  conscience  sake  —  and  they  give  vent  to 
their  feelings  by  cheering  the  president;  and  such 
cheering  !  cheers  such  as  only  Americans  can  give  ; 
and  'midst  the  cheers  there  was  the  cry  and  call  for 
the  president,  and  with  the  constantly  increasing 
numbers  so  the  volume  of  sound  of  voice  of  his 
people  increased  more  and  more  and  would  not  be 
stilled  until  the  president  appeared  at  the  window 
over  the  portico,  and  the  people  —  the  enthusiastic 
thousands  who  saw  him  —  cried,  "  speech  !  speech  !  " 
but  he  made  none.  He  stood  in  the  window  several 
minutes  and  bowed  and  smiled,  and  it  was  such  a 
pleasant  smile,  and  then  he  retired ;  but  the  cheers 
being  renewed,  and  they  were  so  hearty  and  evidently 
so  sincere,  he  came  to  the  window  again  and  bowed 
several  times,  and  the  second  time  he  came  he  led  a 
little  boy  with  him  ;  then  standing  there  what  seemed 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  43 

a  long  time  one  could  see  that  he  was  greatly  af- 
fected by  the  scene  before  him,  as  if  the  trials 
through  which  he  and  all  the  people,  North  and 
South,  had  passed  during  the  years  of  his  presidency 
haunted  him.  Then  bowing,  and  still  bowing  he 
passed  from  our  view,  and  that  was  the  last  time  I 
saw  Abraham  Lincoln. 

In  closing,  let  me  say  that  in  after  years  I  met 
other  soldiers  from  Kensington,  East  Kingston, 
Kingston,  Hampton  Falls,  Seabrook,  and  other 
towns  adjacent,  who  told  me  that  they  were  there  and 
were  a  part  of  the  great  crowd  who  gathered  in  front 
of  the  White  House  that  night  fifty  years  ago  to  pay 
homage  and  to  show  their  love  for  "  Old  Abe,"  the 
man  known  in  history  as  being  "  of  the  people,  for 
the  people  and  by  the  people,"  and  will  ever  so  re- 
main —  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Personally  I  recall  the  names  of  but  six  that  were 
there  as  participants  in  the  demonstration  as  above 
related  and  they  were  all  from  Kensington,  four  of 
them  soldiers :  Ferdinand  L.  Blake,  John  V.  Hodg- 
don,  Amos  Rowell,  and  John  Eaton.  Accompany- 
ing these  were  Mr.  Eaton's  wife,  Mrs.  Lois  Eaton, 
and  the  then  boy, 

HAROLD  F.  BLAKE. 

VIII 

The  Two  Soldiers  and  the  One  Weak  Ankle 

THE  two  stories  of  this  chapter  tell  of  what  befell 
two  Kensington  men  who  enlisted  in  1862  to 
help  Uncle  Sam  keep  the  Union  intact  as  one  nation, 
as  the  founders  intended  it  should  be. 


44  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

As  both  men  passed  to  the  great  beyond  many 
years  ago,  and  as  neither  left  descendants  to  read 
the  stories  (though  were  any  living  they  might  well 
approve  of  them)  I  see  nothing. in  them  to  run 
counter  to  good  taste  by  the  telling  of  them  in  de- 
tail, as  the  facts  warrant,  and  as  several  of  the  old 
veterans  now  living  can  vouch. 

I  may  say  that  the  stories  are  more  than  stories, 
for,  while  they  relate  to  two  characters  as  individuals, 
they  do  more,  they  tell  of  the  lax  and  horribly 
inadequate  business  methods  and  conditions  prevail- 
ing in  the  military  as  well  as  the  civil  service  of  our 
country  during  and  immediately  succeeding  the  Civil 
War,  conditions  that  worked  cruel  hardships  upon 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  war-scarred, 
blood-poisoned,  physically  broken  down,  and  in 
many  cases  prematurely  old  veterans.  The  stories 
concern 

Ira  E.  Brown  and  Jeremiah  K.  Leavett 

MR.  BROWN  was  a  native  of  Kensington,  and 
all  our  people  knew  him  from  school-days. 
In  person  he  was  powerfully  built,  over  six  feet, 
three  inches  in  height,  well  proportioned  and  in  the 
prime  of  life,  about  forty,  at  the  time  of  the  incidents 
related. 

In  the  general  description  of  the  man's  mental 
and  physical  makeup  I  may  say  that  in  my  fairly 
wide  reading  of  literature  I  have  found  but  one  char- 
acter with  which  to  liken  him,  Eachen  Maclan,  a 
chief  of  one  of  the  Highland  clans  of  Scotland,  as  he 
is  portrayed  by  Scott  in  his  delightful  novel,  "  The 
Fair  Maid  of  Perth." 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  45 

The  story  of  Eachen  is  said  to  be  historically  true. 
If  any  of  my  readers  wishes  to  learn  just  what  kind 
of  a  man  Eachen  was  he  should  read  the  thirty- 
fourth  chapter  of  the  above  named  book,  and  he 
will  see  that  such  as  E.achen  never  become  national 
heroes.  No,  it  isn't  such  as  he  that  becomes  the 
"  Harry  Smiths  of  the  Wynd,"  the  Farraguts 
"  lashed  to  the  mast,"  the  Israel  Putnams  "  in  the 
den  of  wolves,"  or  volunteer  with  the  Hobsons, 
lead  forlorn  hopes  with  the  General  Picketts,  wear 
the  "  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  "  or  the  "  Victoria 
Cross,"  or  receive  the  "Thanks  of  Congress"  for 
conspicuous  valor,  but  they  do  frequently  land  first 
and  foremost  when  it  comes  to  the  securing  of  large 
pensions,  as  Ira  did. 

The  story  of  Ira  runs  thus :  To  his  associates,  as 
boy  and  man,  he  was  known  to  be  lacking  in  both 
the  mental  and  physical  qualities  that  go  to  make  up 
the  Spartan  hero.  Hence  it  was  that  it  took  several 
weeks  of  hazing  and  raillery  of  his  friends  to  even 
get  him  to  visit  the  recruiting  office  in  the  townhouse 
during  the  summer  of  1862.  But  he  finally  went, 
and  there  met  with  so  much  encouragement  and 
enthusiastic  solicitation,  that  he  agreed  then  and 
there  to  enlist;  and  before  his  promise  had  time  to 
cool  or  his  courage  to  wane,  they  had  his  coat  and 
vest  off,  and  he  was  measured  and  weighed ;  and, 
upon  the  signing  of  the  papers,  he  was  an  enlisted 
man  before  he  fully  realized  it.  Yes,  it  was  done 
so  quickly  that  many  a  man  like  Sam  Lamprey,  Bill 
Hodgdon,  Nute  and  Frank  Austin,  Weare  Nudd  and 
Jack  Shaw,  Jim  Brown  and  others  like  them,  fairly 


46  RE-TOLD  TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES. 

chuckled  over  the  almost  shanghaing  of  Ira  into  the 
army. 

When  the  formalities  were  over  the  recruiting 
officer  said  in  his  quiet  and  gentle  way :  "  Ira,  don't 
forget  yourself,  and  let  your  ankle  get  out  of  joint 
when  you  go  to  Concord  to  be  examined."  I  won- 
der if  any  now  living  remember  these  words  of 
caution  of  the  recruiting  officer  so  kindly  meant. 
Whether  any  others  now  remember  the  incident,  Ira 
remembered  the  injunction  then,  for  he  kept  his 
ankle  in  place  while  in  Concord  and  passed  his  ex- 
amination without  any  trouble,  and  later  was  mus- 
tered into  the  14th  New  Hampshire  Regiment. 

The  joke  of  the  ankle  was  this:  From  childhood 
Ira  could  throw  it  out  of  joint  at  will,  and  cause  it  to 
lay  practically  at  a  right  angle  fiat  on  the  ground. 
However,  in  due  time  our  hero,  with  his  regiment, 
landed  at  the  front,  where  he  served  faithfully  though 
uneventfully  nearly  two  years.  Yes,  all  went  well 
with  him  until  one  day,  being  detailed  with  a  few 
others  for  scout  duty,  and  he  being  somewhat 
advanced  on  the  skirmish  line,  he  was  surprised  at 
finding  himself  somewhat  cut  off  from  the  others 
and  in  very  close  proximity  to  the  enemy,  as  he 
could  tell  by  the  sharp  crack  of  the  enemy's  rifles  in 
the  distance,  and  the  more  vividly  so  as  he  heard 
the  whizzing  of  the  bullet  past  his  head.  And  so 
Ira,  in  seeking  a  safe  place  for  individual  effort,  or 
refuge,  which  meant  the  hasty  getting  off  of  the 
firing  line,  had  occasion  to  crawl  through  a  Virginia 
"  zigzag  "  rail  fence.  Whereupon,  when  about  half 
way  through,  offering  a  good  broad  target  to  the 
enemy,  a  Johnny  Reb  sharpshooter,  taking  careful 


HAROLD   F.    BLAKE.  47 

aim,  put  a  bullet  clean  plump  into  the  right  side  of 
the  sitting  down  part  of  his  anatomy.  But,  it  being 
a  long  range  shot,  the  force  of  the  bullet  was  so 
spent  that,  while  it  did  penetrate  his  trousers,  it 
barely  entered  the  flesh  its  own  depth.  In  fact,  so 
slight  was  the  wound  that  a  comrade  coming  up, 
seeing  that  Ira  had  not  only  got  caught,  but  still 
hung  in  the  fence,  and  wounded,  probed  for  and 
removed  the  ball  with  his  jackknife. 

Such  being  the  true  state  of  affairs  with  Ira,  one 
would  have  thought  that  such  a  wound,  while  it 
might  be  a  little  troublesome  to  sit  down  with  for  a 
few  days,  would  on  the  whole,  and  especially  con- 
sidering his  narrow  escape,  have  been  one  to  cause 
smiles  rather  than  tears,  merriment  rather  than  sor- 
row, and  that  he  would  soon  be  again  on  the  firing 
line.  But  no !  While  the  injury  from  the  bullet 
from  the  Kentucky  sharpshooter  was  to  the  naked 
eye  of  the  layman,  located  at  the  center  of  the  side 
of  his  posterior,  the  real  effect  of  the  shot  was  that 
his  ankle  became  disjointed  and  lay  flat  on  the 
ground,  and  the  efforts  of  the  most  skilled  of  the 
army  surgeons  could  not  with  splint  or  plaster 
strengthen  either  "nerve,  bone  or  sinew  "sufficiently 
to  hold  it  in  place.  After  many  and  repeated  efforts 
had  been  made  by  the  surgeons  to  "  knit"  the  liga- 
ments without  avail  they  diagnosed  it  to  be  a  "  help- 
less case,"  and  so  the  doubly  injured  man  was,  by 
unanimous  action  of  the  board  of  surgeons,  officers 
and  chaplain  of  his  regiment,  honorably  discharged 
forthwith.  And  to  top  the  whole,  his  discharge 
papers  explicitly  set  forth  how  that  the  injury  of  the 
ankle  was  a  very  serious  one,  caused  by  a  bullet 


48  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES, 

wound  received  in  action,  that  the  wound  was  of  a 
permanent  character,  and  that  he  should  be  pensioned 
by  the  Government  at  once.  Yes,  all  these  things 
were  solemnly  set  forth  in  Ira's  discharge  papers. 
And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  our  hero,  with  reason- 
able despatch,  landed  in  the  old  home  town  with  his 
ankle  (officially)  flat  on  the  ground. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  law  Ira's  was  a  clear  case  and 
deserving,  because  there  were  so  many  officers  and 
men  who  knew  of  the  shot  at  the  rail  fence,  and  of 
the  immediate  effect  therefrom  and  thereof ;  and, 
these  things  having  been  certified  to  by  many  officers 
and  men  in  their  report  the  evidence  was  conclusive, 
so  Ira  quickly  obtained  a  very  large  pension  to  start 
with,  and  with  scarce  any  medical  examination  what- 
ever. What  was  the  need  when  he  had  the  official 
certificate  of  his  commanding  officers,  surgeons  and 
chaplain  that  his  was  a  permanent  disability  result- 
ing from  a  bullet  wound  received  in  action?  And 
when  Ira  was  examined  for  increase  of  pension, 
which  was  not  overlooked,  the  examination  was  merely 
pro  forma,  as  the  ankle  never  failed  to  play  its  part 
as  it  had  done  at  the  rail  fence,  or,  as  when  in  his 
schooldays  he  would  throw  it  out  for  fun. 

Speaking  of  increase  of  pension :  I  am  doing  no 
injury  to  the  feelings  of  the  living  or  to  the  good 
name  of  the  dead  when  I  say  that  while  Ira  received, 
as  I  have  stated,  a  very  large  pension  to  start  with, 
he  was  able  to  have  it  increased  several  times  before 
he  died. 

In  commenting  upon  this  particular  case  one  could 
have  said  that  while  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  it  was  a 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  49 

very  weak  and  useless  ankle  physically,  to  Ira  it  was 
a  very  strong  one  financially. 

Before  taking  leave  of  our  old  friend  Ira,  let  it  be 
said  that  though  there  were  scarce  half  a  dozen  of 
the  Kensington  soldiers  but  what  knew  of  the  story 
of  the  oscillating  ankle  and  of  its  easy  -manipulation 
long  before  the  war,  no  one  of  them  but  felt  that 
Ira  was  lucky  in  getting  the  pension  he  did,  for 
there  were  so  many  of  them  who,  though  more  de- 
serving, were  unable  to  get  one,  and  so  it  was  that 
instead  of  envying  they  all  congratulated  him. 

Now  comes  the  strangest  part  of  the  whole  story : 
While  it  may  seem  incredible,  it  is  true  that  notwith- 
standing his  large  and  ever  increasing  pension,  Ira 
wrought  at  his  trade  of  cordwainer  (for  as  such  he 
was  enlisted)  and  did  a  full  days  work  each  day  for 
many  years,  as  in  form  and  manner  minutely  set 
forth  (or  will  be)  in  another  story. 

IX 

Jeremiah  K.  Leavett 

THIS  being  a  sort  of  companion  story  to  the  one 
told  of  Ira,  and  both  true  stories,  we  can  see 
by  comparing  them  that  "  Truth  is  strange,  stranger 
than  fiction,"  but  we  do  not  clearly  understand  why 
it  is  that  the  righteous  man  is  so  often  forgotten,  why 
the  table  of  the  one  is  amply  supplied  with  bread  and 
honey,  whilst  the  other  only  receives  the  remnants 
from  the  table  of  the  cottages  along  the  wayside. 
That  this  is  so,  listen  to  the  story  of  the  real  hero. 

First  of  all,  let  it  be  said  that  he  was  a  genial  and 
kindly  man,  and  that  being  such,  was  familiarly  known 


50  RE-TOLD  TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES. 

by  old  and  young  everywhere  as  "  Jerry,"  and  so  I 
will  call  him. 

Jerry  was  not  a  native  of  our  town,  but  was,  I 
think,  born  in  Exeter.  At  any  rate,  his  brother 
Nathaniel  was  a  prominent  man  in  that  town,  serving 
as  sheriff  for  several  years  and  as  postmaster  for  two 
terms  as  I  remember.  Though  memory,  not  being 
infallible,  fools  us  all  sometimes. 

Jerry  was  a  widower,  and  had,  at  the  time  of  my 
story,  two  daughters.  As  I  recollect,  he  first  made 
his  appearance  in  our  town  in  the  early  summer  of 
1861,  coming  there  from  Amesbury  Mills,  as  it  was 
called  then,  to  help  my  grandfather,  Captain  Josiah 
T.  Blake,  through  haying.  When  haying  was  fin- 
ished Jerry  concluded  to  remain  in  town,  and  did  so. 

Unlike  his  brother  Nathaniel,  who  was  an  ardent 
republican,  Jerry  was  a  whole-hearted  democrat,  and 
so  it  was  among  the  men  belonging  to  that  party 
that  he  found  congenial  spirits.  And  so  it  was,  too, 
that  when  these,  his  closest  friends,  came  forward  to 
enlist,  as  we  have  seen  they  did,  Jerry  was  amongst 
the  very  first  to  volunteer  to  fight  for  Uncle  Sam. 

I  may  say  here  that  at  the  time  he  first  came  to 
our  town  Jerry  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  physi- 
cally a  perfect  type  and  specimen  of  vigorous  man- 
hood. 

A  more  particular  description  of  him  would  show 
him  to  have  been  of  medium  height,  rather  thick  set, 
and  as  quick  on  his  feet  as  a  cat.  In  disposition  he 
was  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  men,  everybody,  chil- 
dren and  all,  liking  him ;  and,  while  given  to  con- 
viviality on  such  days  as  the  Fourth  of  July,  Thanks- 
giving Day  with  its  turkey  shoot,  and  Christmas, 


HAROLD   F.    BLAKE.  51 

when  everybody,  as  he  expressed  it,  was  supposed  to 
feel  "  whop-de-doodle-de-dum,"  his  every  act  was 
within  the  bounds  of  propriety,  and  he  was  always 
courteous  and  never  forgot  that  he  was  a  gentleman. 

And  so  Jerry  went  to  the  war  with  the  rest.  I  do  not 
recall  what  regiment  he  joined  '  or  how  many  battles 
he  was  in,  but  we  do  know  that  for  nearly  three 
years  he  was  at  the  front,  fought  through  several 
campaigns,  and  was  in  many  engagements ;  that  he 
was  transferred  several  times,  and,  in  consequence, 
could  scarce  remember  the  names  of  his  early  officers 
and  comrades.  And  yet,  in  whatever  unit  Jerry  was 
assigned  to  he  did  his  full  duty  as  a  man  should,  and 
well  he  deserved  the  full  credit  and  praise  he  re- 
ceived from  both  superiors  and  equals  for  the  part 
he  played.  Yes,  he  did  deserve  their  praise,  for 
there  being  no  half-hearted  blood  in  Jerry  he  fought 
or  worked  by  day,  and  if  need  be,  tended  his  sick 
and  wounded  comrades  by  night;  and  he  kept  this 
up  for  nearly  three  years,  and  never  during  all  that 
time  did  he  ask  or  receive  leave  of  absence,  or  fur- 
lough, to  go  home  to  see  his  people. 

But,  alas  !  as  the  stoutest  oak  bends  and  breaks 
before  the  blast,  so  Jerry's  stout  heart  and  body  broke 
down  under  the  constant  strain,  and  he  was  taken  to 
the  tent  of  the  field  hospital,  a  weary,  worn  and  sick 
man.  And  thus  it  was  that  Jerry  lay  sick  on  his  cot 
in  the  hospital  in  the  far  South  for  many  weeks. 
Then,  when  recovery  was  despaired  of  he  received 
his  discharge  from  the  service  because  of  disability, 
and  he  came  back  to  Kensington,  not  the  same 


1  Fourteenth  N.  H.  Regiment. 


52  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Jerry  that  went  away  nearly  three  years  before.  No, 
for  now  he  was  like  tens  of  thousands  of  others  who 
came  home  from  the  war  with  germs  of  disease  im- 
planted in  their  bodies,  and  from  which  none  ever 
fully  recovered  ;  and  many,  oh,  so  many  !  survived 
but  a  few  weeks,  or  months,  or  years,  and  then  the 
last  roll  call  and  the  last  tap  sounded  for  them. 

I  can  see  Jerry  now  as  we  saw  him  on  the  day  of 
his  return,  a  bent,  feeble,  grey-whiskered  old  man  in 
place  of  the  clean-shaven  and  sturdy  athlete  who 
enlisted  in  our  old  townhouse,  as  we  have  seen  so 
many  others  did,  to  serve  three  years  in  the  armies 
of  Uncle  Sam,  unless  sooner  discharged. 

And  it  came  to  pass  that  for  weeks,  and  even 
months,  after  his  return,  Jerry  was  an  invalid  and  re- 
ceived the  care  and  attention  he  needed  from  his 
oldtime  friends  in  Kensington ;  and  all  who  cared 
for  him  did  so  without  price  or  obligation.  And 
while  in  due  time  he  partially  recovered  his  former 
health  it  never  came  back  to  him  so  as  to  allow  him 
to  follow  his  trade  as  a  hatter,  or  to  perform  other 
arduous  labor,  but  he  did  light  work  here  and  there 
when  he  was  able  to  work  at  all. 

It  may  be  stated  here  as  an  historical  fact  that  for 
the  first  few  years  immediately  succeeding  the  war 
it  was  thought  by  many  of  the  higher-minded  and 
the  more  patriotic  men  that  it  was  not  quite  the 
proper  thing,  even  quite  unpatriotic,  to  -make  appli- 
cation for  a  pension.  And  as  Jerry  was  by  blood  and 
breeding  inclined  to  follow  the  course  and  trend  of 
the  highest  ideals,  he  was  loath  to  apply  for  one, 
though  no  one  deserved  it  more,  nor  was  there  any 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  53 

one  to  whom  the  giving  of  it  would  have  been  more 
unanimously  approved. 

However,  the  counsels  of  friends  at  last  prevailed, 
and  he  applied  for  a  pension.  Being  a  physical 
wreck,  and  the  cause  of  it  known  of  all  men,  he  and 
his  friends  thought  it  would  be  but  a  mere  matter  of 
form.  But,  alas !  he  nor  they  little  knew  the  diffi- 
culties that  lay  in  the  way,  for  in  the  early  days  the 
burden  of  proof  was  all  put  upon  the  applicant  for 
pension,  and  worse  still,  under  the  then  (1865  to 
1875)  Government  policy  the  board  of  examining 
physicians  were  expected,  practically  instructed,  to 
turn  down  every  applicant  possible. 

As  I  remember,  the  certificate  of  any  commissioned 
officer,  regardless  of  his  personal  character,  was 
worth  more  in  getting  a  pension  than  the  certificate 
of  scores  of  privates.  But  having  been  in  and  out 
.of  several  different  units  of  the  service  Jerry  could 
not  find  commissioned  officers,  or  even  privates 
enough  to  certify  or  even  identify  him. 

And  so  it  was  that  he  went,  went,  went,  here,  there, 
and  everywhere,  hoping  to  find  those  who  could 
help  him,  but  he  found  them  not;  and,  it  was  only 
through  the  powerful  influence  of  his  brother  Na- 
thaniel and  General  Marson  and  others  that  he,  after 
nearly  four  years,  was  granted  a  pension  of  two 
dollars  a  month. 

By  this  time,  he  of  the  self-adjusting  ankle  — 
think  of  the  irony  of  it  —  was  getting  twelve  dollars 
a  month.  Eventually,  however,  Jerry  got  six  dollars 
a  month  and  with  this  amount  he  had  to  remain  con- 
tent to  the  end  of  the  chapter,  which  came  all  too 
soon  to  this  gallant  soldier,  this  man  of  high  ideals, 


54  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

this  kindly  gentleman  and  adopted  son  of  Kensing- 
ton, who,  by  enlisting  from  there,  helped  to  make 
up  the  immortal  roll  of  the  grand  old  town's  contri- 
bution of  men  who  fought  in  the  Civil  War  —  Jerry 
Leavett. 

These  two  chapters,  the  companion  stories  of  Ira 
and  Jerry,  could  have  been  much  shorter,  and  yet 
the  readers  have  seen  that  the  war  experience,  or 
history  of  the  two  men  opens  up  for  us  a  wide  field 
for  philosophical  argument,  for  do  they  not  show 
that  circumstances,  environment  and  conditions 
oftentimes  lead  men  to  act  unfairly,  unjustly  even, 
towards  their  fellow  men.  To  some,  too  much  is^ 
given,  to  others,  far  more  deserving  it  may  be,  too 
little ;  and  yet  all  may  be  done  under  the  law. 

But  I  will  leave  speculation  and  discussion  of  these 
abstruse  questions  to  others.  To  me  has  fallen  the 
simple  task  of  telling  the  story  of  Ira  and  Jerry, 
which  I  will  now  conclude  without  further  comment 
than  to  say  this :  While  Jerry  fought  and  worked 
hard  for  nearly  three  years,  and  came  home,  as  we 
have  seen,  an  old,  prematurely  old,  war-worn  and 
broken  down  man,  and  that  he  never  received  a 
pension  large  enough  to  supply  him  with  the  bare 
necessities  of  life,  Ira,  notwithstanding  his  ability  to 
perform  a  full  day's  work  at  his  trade,  received  a 
very  large  one  for  a  disability  born  with  him  (and 
not  as  a  result  of  the  episode  at  the  rail  fence)  and, 
therefore,  not  because  of  his  valor  or  part  in  the  war. 
No,  there  is  no  way  to  explain  such  things  unless  we 
admit  "  That  Divinity  shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew 
them  how  we  will." 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  55 

X 

Kensington's  One  Copperhead 

THERE  was  a  kind  of  a  queer  character  about  Ken- 
sington in  the  late  fifties  and  early  sixties,  but 
where  he  came  from  or  where  he  went  to  I  don't 
know.  I  do  remember,  however,  the  man  very  dis- 
tinctly, that  he  was  short  and  thick,  that  he  had  a 
big,  round  and  florid  face  and  was  phlegmatic  in  all 
things  save  one  —  he  hated  a  "Nigger"  and  all 
Abolitionists  with  unutterable  hatred,  and  would 
lash  himself  into  the  wildest  frenzy  in  talking  about 
them.  In  his  language,  as  I  have  said,  he  was  the 
rankest,  the  most  violent  and  rabid  pro-slavery  man 
of  them  all.  In  speech  alone  he  was  far  worse  than 
old  J L of ,  whom  the  boys  of  Phillips- 
Exeter  routed  out  of  bed  and  made  an  excellent  ex- 
ample of  because  of  his  pro-slavery  utterances  in  1863. 

But  as  the  skunk  and  hedgehog  are  provided  by 
nature  with  means  of  defence,  and  are  therefore  im- 
mune from  attack  by  unarmed  man,  so  this  man  may 
have  been  saved  from  himself  by  mode,  manner,  and 
the  very  violence  of  his  speeches;  and,  especially  it 
may  be,  by  the  extremely  ludicrous  manner  and 
climax  with  which  he  ended  every  one  he  made, 
which,  by  the  way,  was  always  the  same  speech. 

While  I  will  not  undertake  to  give  a  full  verbatim 
report  of  his  oft-repeated  speech,  the  manner  of  it, 
or  all  of  the  words ',  I  will  say  this:  He  would  start 
in  with  a  low,  gentle  voice  to  tell  of  Washington, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  a  whole  string  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Republic,  their  ancestors  and  de- 
scendants as  well,  all  owning  and  trading  in  slaves, 
and  how  tens  of  thousands  of  them  had  been  shang- 


56  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

haied,  or  bought  with  New  England  rum,  made  in 
Newburyport  and  Medford,  from  the  African  chiefs 
and  brought  to  America  in  the  vessels  owned  by  the 
d  —  d  pious  Boston  shipowners.  Yes,  brought  to 
this  country  in  the  very  same  ships  that  had  taken 
the  cargoes  of  rum  and  bibles  to  Africa  to  exchange 
for  the  "Niggers"  —  the  poor  devils,  he  for  one 
wished  that  every  blasted  one  of  them  were  back  in 
the  jungles  of  Africa  where  they  would  be  but  for 
these  pious  gentry  of  Boston  and  Salem.  But,  hav- 
ing been  landed  here  as  they  were,  didn't  old  Cotton 
Mather  own  and  even  kill  his  slaves  with  hard  work 
and  for  lack  of  food  to  eat?  Certainly  he  did. 
Didn't  old  Governor  Weare,  the  patriot  of  Hampton 
Falls,  even  in  our  Revolutionary  days,  own  and  work 
slaves.  He  did,  and  no  one  can  deny  it.  Hasn't 
everybody  that  is  anybody  in  history  owned  and 
worked  slaves,  eveii  right  down  from  Moses,  Abra- 
ham, Isaac  and  Jacob  and  the  rest?  No  one  ques- 
tioned this  right  to  own  and  trade  in  slaves  until  that 
Hat  Beecher  Stowe,  with  her  Tom's  Cabin  lies  and 
rubbish,  and  that  cheap  and  worthless  shoemaker, 
John  Whittier,  composed  rhymes  about  Daniel  Web- 
ster, telling  about  "  Oh  Ichabod  "  and  "  Tom  Shep- 
ley,"  and  the  two  or  three  women,  Suse  Anthony, 
Cad  Stanton  and  Crete  Mott  put  on  breeches  and 
commenced  to  rant  about  the  "  Nigger"  being  better 
than  a  white  man ;  and  then  to  cap  the  climax  they 
wanted  to  go  to  the  polls,  drink  rum  and  vote  with  the 
men  (ten  chances  to  one  that  neither  one  of  them  could 
cook  a  mess  of  potatoes  without  burning  the  kettle 
as  black  as  your  hat).  And  then  there  was  that 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  57 

crazy  fool  Greeley  who  printed  the  Tribune.  And 
then  he  mentioned  Bill  Seward  and  old  Thad  Stevens 
and  others  as  he  went  on. 

When  he  came  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  Charles  Sumner,  John  P.  Hale  and  Bill 
Chandler  he  commenced  to  use  language  that  would 
not  be  fit  to  put  down  here.  He  called  Garrison  a 
cheap  "  tramp  "  printer  who  belonged  in  Newbury- 
port;  of  Wendell  Phillips  he  said  he  had  a  lot  of 
money,  which  had  been  made  by  his  family  by  dis- 
tilling rum  and  which  they,  his  ancestors,  had  bar- 
tered for  the  African  slaves  —  for  the  very  ancestors 
of  those  he  was  now  so  much  concerned  about. 
Talking  !  Why  !  this  man  Phillips  had  nothing  else 
to  do  except  to  talk!  As  for  Charles  Sumner  — 
well,  all  he  could  say  about  him  was  that  he  wished 
that  the  Honorable  Preston  C.  Brooks  had  used  a 
good  deal  heavier  cane  on  him. 

But,  it  was  when  he  came  nearer  home  that  his 
speech  became  more  intense,  wide  and  lurid  in  its 
vocabulary,  as  well  as  bitter  in  its  invective. 

He  said :  Take  that  Frank  Sanborn,  of  Hampton 
Falls;  he  had  far  better  be  on  the  marsh  helping 
"  Old  Hopkins  "  dig  ditches,  or  on  the  clam-flats 
helping  Daniel  Pevear  dig  clams,  or  stacking  salt  hay 
for  somebody,  instead  of  living  down  at  Concord  in 
the  same  town  with  that  ignorant  fool  that  printed 
the  stuff  called  "  The  Bigelow  Papers  "  and  where  the 
writer  of  it  didn't  spell  half  of  the  words  right;  and 
that  man  too,  the  same  as  Sanborn,  made  a  lot  of 
cheap  talk  about  the  "  cussed  "  niggers  and  trying  to 
make  people  believe  that  they  were  not  only  as  good 


58  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

but  better  than  white  men.  Yes,  he  had  far  better 
be  digging  and  shocking  clams,  had  that  man  San- 
born. 

And  yet  it  was  only  when  the  orator  come  to  con- 
sider the  Abolitionists  in  our  town  that  he  really  got 
down  to  personalities.  He  said :  Take  the  whole 
lot  of  Milliard's,  Joe,  Rufe,  Bill  and  Frank;  Charles 
and  Hen  Tuck,  Abe  Titcomb,  Steve  Green,  John 
Adams  Blake,  Parse  Tuck,  Syke  Wadleigh,  Steve 
Brown  and  Tom  Gadd,  they,  every  cussed  one  of 
them  should  be  taken  to  the  center  of  Muddy  Pond, 
and  there  with  a  200-pound  stone  and  rope  with  one 
end  slipnoosed  about  their  necks  should  be  sunk  to 
its  bottomless  depths. 

But  it  was  now  when  he  came  to  the  one,  the 
deepest  dyed  scoundrel  of  them  all,  "Old  Gard 
Clifford  " —  ah  !  then  !  was  the  voice,  words  and 
speech  that  came  from  his  lips  awful  in  their  intensity. 

Ah,  yes,  but  it  was  right  here  that  the  singular 
part  of  the  whole  performance  came  in.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  man  started  in  to  speak  in  the  most 
gentle  and  lamb-like  manner,  with  voice  quiet  and 
soft;  but,  as  he  proceeded  his  voice  gathered 
strength  and  he  warmed  up  by  hearing  himself  tell 
of  the  wickedness  of  the  men  who  were  opposing 
slavery,  and  he  became  more  and  still  more  bitter 
toward  them  as  he  neared  his  peroration.  Then, 
fairly  frothing  at  the  mouth,  he  would  roar  forth  in 
the  most  vituperative  language  at  his  command  his 
hatred  of  all  known  and  unknown  Abolitionists  every- 
where. This  he  continued  to  do  until  from  very 
physical  exhaustion  he  was  obliged  to  stop.  And  then, 
lowering  his  voice  lower  and  still  lower  until  finally 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  59 

to  the  very  point  from  whence  he  started  to  speak,  he 
would,  in  almost  a  gentle  whisper  say:  "  I  wish  they 
were  all  in  h — 11,  and  that's  all  I've  got  to  say 
about  it." 

As  no  man  knoweth  from  whence  the  sparrow 
cometh,  or  whither  it  goeth,  so,  as  I  have  said,  I 
don't  know  from  whence  this  man  came  when  he 
landed  in  Kensington,  or  who  his  relatives  were,  if 
he  had  any,  or  even  who  he  lived  with,  though  I  am 
sure  that  he  lived  on  the  Stumpfield  road  somewhere, 
or  what  he  did  for  a  living  while  in  town,  or  to  what 
parts  he  migrated  when  he  left.  But  I  do  know  that 
he  was  an  alien  to  our  soil,  that  he  was  a  rabid  and 
uncompromising  Copperhead,  the  only  one  that  ever 
lived  within  our  boundaries,  that  I  heard  him  many 
times  make  the  speech  in  manner  and  form  as  here 
set  down,  that  his  name  was  Charley  Nutter  Brown, 
and  that  he  stuttered. 

XI 

The  Parson's  Donation  Party  in  War  Times 

IN  the  old  days,  as  all  good  country  folk  know,  in 
addition  to  his  yearly  stipend  it  was  customary 
for  the  preacher  to  benefit  by  what  should  come  to 
him  through  the  semi-annual  donation  parties;  and 
it  can  be  said  that,  while  no  preconcerted  action  by 
donor's  could,  under  the  circumstances,  be  taken, 
these  parties  were  intended  to  be  of  the  most  practi- 
cal and  substantial  character,  that  is  to  say,  for  the 
purpose  of  filling  of  the  preacher's  larder,  though  it 
often  happened  that  the  clergyman  received  a  super- 
abundance of  some  particular  thing;  yea,  not  in- 


60  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF   WAR   TIMES. 

frequently  things  that  no  one  in  his  family  ever  ate 
or  used.  However,  the  parties  in  themselves  were 
always  a  source  of  much  pleasure  and  enjoyment  to 
both  the  pastor  and  his  people. 

Whether  these  time-honored  functions  have  passed 
away  with  many  of  the  other  old-time  customs  or 
not,  I  do  not  know.  If  they  have,  then  the  telling 
of  the  following  story  will  bring  back  to  mind  again, 
not  only  the  story  of  the  average  donation  party, 
but  of  one  particular  party,  and  it  will  point  out  how 
it  was  that  very  queer  things  happened  sometimes 
because  of  this  method  of  parishoners  donating 
"  hit-or-miss,"  as  was  their  custom.  To  make  this 
clear  I  will  tell  what  happened  at  a  party  given  to 
Parson  E.  in  1863. 

First  of  all,  as  at  all  such  gatherings,  the  menfolk 
and  boyfolk  take  note  of  the  appearance  of  both 
womenfolk  and  girlfolk,  and  as  I  saw  them  then  I  see 
them  now,  many  of  them  with  their  hair  in  curls  or 
ringlets,  others  with  their  hair  in  silken  nets,  hanging 
low  down  at  the  back  of  the  neck,  all  wearing  prim 
white  collars  held  together  at  the  throat  with  pink- 
and-white  cameo  brooch,  and  all  wearing  hoop-skirts 
and  wide-spreading  crinoline. 

Had  my  reader  been  present,  and  interested  to 
see  how  much  the  good  Shepherd  was  to  benefit, 
and  had  kept  tabs,  the  inventory  would  have  shown 
about  as  follows : 

Six  families  brought  clothespins,  six  dozen  in  a 
package,  seven  brought  each  two  salt  codfish,  five 
brought  one  dozen  each  of  laundry  soap,  one  a  cake 
of  shaving  soap,  two  brought  each  a  smoked  ham 
(32-pounders),  three  subscriptions  for  the  New  York 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  61 

Tribune,  five  for  the  Exeter  News-Letter,  three  for 
Harper's  Weekly,  two  for  the  Atlantic  monthly,  five 
brought  Robert's  Farmers'  Almanac,  and  three 
brought  Dudley  Leavett's. 

The  several  individual  donations  of  necessary  and 
useful  articles  of  ordinary  family  consumption 
amounted  in  the  aggregate  as  follows : 

Three  pounds  of  salt  pork,  two  pounds  of  leaf 
lard,  one  dozen  smoked  herring,  one  pound  of  coffee, 
Mocha  and  Java  mixed,  and  two  large  fresh  pork 
spareribs.  All  told  there  were  twenty-three  pounds 
of  butter,  nineteen  gallons  of  vinegar,  sixteen  bags 
of  table  salt,  and  all  of  the  packages  of  cayenne 
pepper  weighed  two  and  three-fourths  pounds.  There 
were  seventeen  bottles  of  extract  of  lemon,  twenty- 
two  bottles  of  vanilla  and  sixteen  sticks  of  Rising 
Sun  stove  polish.  The  different  lots  of  potato  starch 
weighed  twenty-nine  pounds;  one  ream  of  writing 
paper  and  eleven  bottles  of  ink,  twenty-seven  pieces 
of  store  cheese,  and  fourteen  lots  of  home-made 
"  cottage  "  or  "  sour-milkers." 

There  were  fourteen  lots  of  French  turnips,  or 
about  six  bushels,  and  four  bushels  English ;  in  all 
there  was  but  one-half  peck  of  potatoes,  but  what 
they  fell  short  in  potatoes  they  made  up  in  pump- 
kins —  there  were  eighty-nine  of  these  and  all  big 
ones  —  but  only  one  squash,  a  small  one.  The  cab- 
bages totaled  111,  Savoy's  and  "  drum-heads  "  about 
equally  apportioned,  and  one-half  peck  of  onions, 
one  and  one-half  pounds  of  granulated  sugar  and  two 
pounds  of  brown  sugar,  ten  gallons  of  molasses  — 
six  Porto  Rico  and  four  New  Orleans,  made  before 
the  war  —  and  of  apples  there  were  thirty-three 


62  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES. 

bushels  of  various  sorts,  amongst  them  one  bushel  of 
"  jillyflowers,"  at  that  time  considered  the  finest  eat- 
ing apple  grown  in  New  England,  a  species  now  ex- 
tinct, I  believe.  Of  pop-corn  there  were  some  six- 
teen bushels,  on  the  cob,  of  course. 

Going  on  with  our  inventory  we  found  that  there 
were  nineteen  quarts  of  yellow-eye,  sixteen  quarts  of 
red  kidney  and  twenty-two  quarts  of  small  pea  beans. 
There  were  thirteen  quarter-gross  of  lucifer  matches. 
It  being  "  walnut  year  "  the  sixteen  lots  of  shelled 
walnuts  amounted  to  something  over  three  and  three- 
fourths  bushels. 

There  were  nine  bushels  of  carrots,  three  pecks  of 
winter  pears,  five  forequarters  of  mutton,  a  miscel- 
laneous lot  of  horse  radish  and  artichokes,  eleven 
and  one-fourth  bushels  of  beets,  twenty-one  quarts 
of  "boiled  cider,"  and  several  bunches  each  of  sage, 
summer-savory  and  thyme,  several  bunches  of  catnip, 
also  three  circingles  and  a  blanket  for  the  parson's 
nag. 

The  busy  housewives  brought  eleven  quart  and 
seventeen  pint  jars  of  picalilli,  thirteen  bottles  of 
chowchow  and  sixteen  of  catsup,  nine  of  chutney 
sauce  and  three  large  firkins  of  "  boiled  cider  apple 
sauce,"  about  sixty  quarts  in  all.  There  were  several 
pots  and  jars  of  pickles  and  preserves  besides,  and 
someone  brought  a  big  stone  jar  of  mincemeat. 

The  good  old  grandmarms  had  knitted  fourteen 
pairs  of  wool  socks  and  nine  pairs  of  woolen  mittens 
for  the  parson,  and  they  topped  off  their  gifts  with  a 
full  web  of  fine  cotton  cloth,  unbleached,  suitable  for 
underwear,  sheets  and  pillow  cases. 


HAROLD    F.   BLAKE.  63 

There  was  money  given,  too,  and  not  a  little  of  it 
was  of  a  very  unique  sort,  and  as  it  had  but  recently 
appeared  in  our  parts  it  awakened  a  great  curiosity 
among  all  classes  of  people.  Believing  that  it  may 
not  be  without  interest  to  some  of  my  readers,  of  the 
younger  generation  at  least,  I  will  tell  about  it.  But 
first,  let  us  go  to  the  "  lightstand  in  the  corner," 
where  we  will  see  a  pretty  glass  dish  waiting  to  re- 
ceive the  cash  donations  always  expected  at  these 
gatherings.  We  have  not  long  to  wait  to  see  the 
money  accumulate.  And  such  money !  Script  it 
was  called,  and  it  was  issued  in  3,  5,  10,  25  and  50- 
cent  denominations. 

Issued  by  whom  it  may  be  asked  ?  The  answer  is, 
by  anybody.  Yet  there  was  neither  gold  or  silver 
or  other  security  behind  it,  and  was  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  a  note  of  hand,  simply  a  promise  to 
pay,  given  in  the  form  of  script,  and  any  one  who 
wanted  to  issue  it  could  do  so.  If  a  man  owning 
and  operating  a  sawmill,  grocery  store,  hotel,  black- 
smith's shop  or  any  other  kind  of  a  shop  could  the 
better  handle  his  business  by  putting  out  a  quantity 
of  this  script,  he  did  so. 

Among  others  I  remember  that  Charles  E.  Morrill, 
grocer  at  East  Kingston,  John  D.  Locke,  grocer  at  Sea- 
brook,  Joshua  Getchell,  hardware,  J.  F.  Lyford,  dry- 
goods,  and  Fogg  &  Fellows,  booksellers  and  periodi- 
cal dealers  at  Exeter,  and  Darius  Towle,  hotel  keeper 
and  wagon-builder  at  Kingston,  all  issued  a  lot  of 
this  script  money.  Mr.  Towle  alone  issued  several 
thousand  dollars  worth  of  it.  Why  he  issued  so 
much  more  than  any  one  else  about  the  county  was 
this:  He  needed  the  money  to  finance  the  building 


64  RE-TOLD   TALES   OF  WAR  TIMES. 

of  large  numbers  of  army  wagons  that  he  contracted 
to  build  for  the  Government  during  the  war  with  the 
South.  However,  no  one  seemed  to  have  any  love 
for  it.  All  looked  upon  it  with  contempt,  some  with 
suspicion,  but  every  one  called  it  "  shinplaster,"  and 
it  looked  the  part.  But,  as  these  were  the  times  that 
tried  men's  souls,  and  women's  too,  they  accepted 
even  the  "  shinplaster  "  as  tokens  of  currency  value. 

And  so,  piled  high  in  the  dish,  one  could  see 
these  tiny  scraps  of  paper,  printed  in  red,  green, 
black  and  brown,  the  denominational  value  of  the 
script;  the  name  and  place  of  abode  of  the 
payee,  who  promised  to  pay  on  demand  the  amount 
"  nominated  in  the  bond,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  it  is  probable , 
that  we  saw  many  other  names  printed  on  these 
small  pieces  of  paper,  with  simply  a  promise  to  pay 
the  bearer  on  demand,  as  we  have  said,  the  amount 
"  nominated  in  the  bond." 

All  this  did  seem  mighty  strange  at  the  time,  but 
it  seems  a  hundredfold  more  strange  to  us  to-day  to 
recall  that  such  things  were  actually  done  in  Rock- 
ingham  County,  even  in  war  times,  but  't  is  true.  I 
cannot  drop  this  subject  without  remarking  that  I 
have  often  wondered  what  became  of  that  dirty  old 
"  shinplaster  "  token  of  money.  So  far  as  I  know 
or  ever  heard,  what  was  not  lost  or  kept  as  curio 
specimens  of  war's  currency  necessities,  this  script 
was  all  redeemed  by  those  who  issued  it.  At  least 
this  is  true  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  our  part  of  the 
country.  But,  to  the  donator  and  to  the  donatee 
on  the  night  of  this  donation  party  the  old  script  of 
the  war  period  passed  at  its  face  value.  All  this 
which  I  have  written  may  be  of  interest  to  the  anti- 


HAROLD   F.    BLAKE.  65 

quary  if  not  to  the  general  reader.  But,  while  we 
have  been  telling  about  it  "  heeps  "  of  the  old  make- 
shift currency  has  been  placed  in  the  receiver.  But 
let  us  now  proceed  with  our  story. 

"  The  famous  cooks  of  Kensington  "  also  brought 
with  them  a  hundred  good  things  for  hosts  and 
guests  to  eat.  These  were  served  by  rosy-cheeked 
misses  in  clean,  spic-and-span  white  aprons  and 
frocks,  and  after  the  refreshments  all  the  folk,  old 
and  young,  joined  in  singing  the  popular  songs  of 
the  day,  "  John  Brown's  Body  Lies  a  Mouldering  in 
the  Grave,"  "  Red,  White  and  Blue,"  "  Marching 
Through  Georgia,"  "  We  're  Tenting  To-night  on  the 
Old  Camp  Ground,"  "I  Wish  I  Was  in  Dixie," 
"  We  '11  Hang  Jeff  Davis  to  a  Sour  Apple  Tree,"  and 
other  popular  songs  of  the  time.  After  these  were 
sung  a  little  miss  recited  "  Three  Grains  of  Corn, 
Mother,  Only  Three  Grains  of  Corn,"  and  then  one 
of  the  popular  young  ladies  gave  us  "Bingen  on  the 
Rhine,"  with  great  dramatic  force,  and  which  called 
for  repeated  efforts  on  her  part,  but  being  of  that  family 
she  was  sure  to  succeed.  And  there  were  other 
numbers  on  the  program,  but  I  have  left  the  one 
great  event  or  feature  of  the  evening  to  tell  last,  the 
story  of  John  Pat  Lamprey  and  the  quintal  of 
mackerel. 

As  for  John  Pat  himself,  it  is  doubtful  if  he  was 
himself  at  this  party,  for  he  was  not  inclined  to  at- 
tend such  functions,  nor  was  he  what  would  be  called 
a  church-going  man,  though  a  sterling  upright  man 
and  Christian.  But,  as  the  support  of  the  church, 
and  its  work  in  the  community,  was  a  strongly 
grounded  tradition  and  custom  of  his  family,  and 


66  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

had  been  so  for  many  generations  —  traditions  in 
which  he  took  great  pride  —  he  felt  morally  bound 
to  uphold  its  ancient  customs  as  well  as  its  untar- 
nished good  name. 

There  was  another  impelling  force,  he  was  a  great 
admirer,  and  had  been  since  they  were  children,  of 
his  two  sisters,  who  had  always  lived  with  him  in  the 
great  farmhouse.  And  well  he  might,  for  they  were 
both  very  beautiful  women,  both  highly  cultivated 
intellectually,  and  both  greatly  interested  in  the  work 
and  general  welfare  of  their  church.  Then,  too,  to 
his  wife  he  was  a  very  devoted  husband,  and  as  she, 
too,  was  an  active  worker  in  the  same  church,  we 
can  see  that  he  had  every  incentive  to  help  the* 
family  church  in  material  ways.  So  John  Pat  never 
failed  to  contribute  liberally  towards  every  good  and 
charitable  movement  in  which  his  wife  and  sisters 
were  interested,  and  his  contributions  were  not  of 
the  things  of  commonplace  farm  production,  but  of 
articles  that  required  real  cash  money  to  acquire. 

Acting  on  this  principle,  he  having  seen  in  Frank 
Milliard's  store  a  quintal  of  A  No.  1  salt  mackerel, 
and  being  extremely  fond  of  such  fish  himself,  he 
decided  to  purchase  and  contribute  the  whole  lot 
towards  the  parson's  fall  donation,  then  near  at 
hand.  And  so  he  ordered  delivery  of  same  to  be 
made  to  Parson  E.,  day  and  date  of  the  said  party. 

Before  proceeding  further  I  should  say  that  this 
particular  donation  party  was  in  every  way  success- 
ful socially,  as  well  as  in  the  quantity  and  value  of 
the  contributions  to  the  larder  of  the  parsonage,  as  the 
pastor  saw  the  following  day,  when  he,  upon  taking 
an  inventory,  found  much  to  be  thankful  for.  Al- 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  67 

beit  he  found  but  a  comparatively  small  quantity  of 
either  white  or  brown  sugar,  or  lard,  or  squash,  or 
tea,  or  coffee,  and  not  a  single  parishoner  had 
thought  of  a  barrel,  or  even  of  a  bag  of  flour,  which 
at  that  time  the  cheapest  St.  Louis  was  worth  twenty 
dollars  and  upwards  per  barrel.  But,  on  the  whole 
the  pastor  found  that  he  was  well  supplied  with 
many  useful  articles  of  food  and  raiment,  even  in 
some  things  superabundantly  supplied. 

Yes,  it  was  a  most  bounteous  and  acceptable  dona- 
tion of  useful  things  and  all  could  be  made  use  of  in 
due  time,  everything  save  one,  the  quintal  of  mack- 
erel —  no  one  in  the  family  ever  ate  it.  And  so  the 
quintal  of  mackerel  remained  in  the  storeroom  for 
some  time. 

Finally,  it  occurred  to  the  parson  that  the  best 
thing  to  do  would  be  to  exchange  the  mackerel  for 
sugar  and  other  things  of  daily  consumption,  and  upon 
inquiry,  Mr.  Billiard  said  that  he  would  gladly  make 
the  exchange,  and  did  so  to  their  mutual  advantage. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  on  the  same  day  of  this 
barter  and  exchange  of  mackerel  for  groceries,  John 
Pat  went  to  the  postoffice,  where,  seeing  a  newly 
opened  quintal  of  mackerel,  he  purchased  ten  pounds. 

Being  "  freshened  over  night  "  and  boiled  the  next 
day  for  dinner,  he  and  his  family  really  feasted.  In- 
deed, so  much  did  they  enjoy  them,  that  he  went  to 
the  store  the  same  night  and  purchased  fifteen 
pounds  more.  And  a  second,  and  third  and  several 
other  excellent  breakfasts  and  dinners  were  the  result 
of  his  purchases.  And,  as  they  feasted,  so  they 
hoped  that  the  fish  given  to  the  parson  were  as  good, 


68  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

and  being  relished  as  much  as  the  ones  they  were 
eating. 

Indeed,  so  much  did  the  family  enjoy  their  meals 
of  mackerel,  that  they  decided  to  purchase  more  of 
them,  and  so  by  quick  action  John  Pat  was  able  to 
purchase  the  balance  of  the  lot.  And  so  it  was  that 
J.  P.  and  his  household  folk  enjoyed  their  feasts  of 
A  No.  1  salt  mackerel  from  time  to  time  nearly  all 
winter,  and  it  was  not  until  several  weeks  after  the 
last  one  had  been  eaten  that  the  story  leaked  out  and 
he  learned  the  true  story  of  how  he  had  bought  at 
wholesale  in  the  first  place ;  given  them  away  at 
wholesale  in  the  second  place,  and  in  the  third  place 
had  repurchased  them  at  retail  for  his  own  family 
use. 

The  reader  may  well  believe  the  story  as  I  have 
told  it,  but  to  have  heard  John  Pat  tell  the  part  he 
played  in  it  was  a  rare  treat,  and  one  to  remember  a 
lifetime.  Even  the  remembrance  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  told  the  story,  with  all  the  embellishments, 
such  as  only  a  Lamprey  could  introduce  into  the 
commonplace,  awakens  memories  that  bring  with 
them  many  another  gathering  of  Kensington  folk 
similar  in  character  to  the  one  here  but  barely  half 
told.  Yes,  even  now,  I  can  see  in  the  shadows  of 
the  low-burning  night-lamp,  and  in  fancy,  scores  of 
smiling  and  familiar  faces  as  I  saw  them  on  the  night 
of  this  donation  party,  and  at  other  gatherings  of  a 
kindred  nature. 

Yes,  this  was  a  very  pleasant  party  and  successful, 
though  the  war-clouds  made  the  days  dark  in  the 
land,  and  many  hearts  were  aching,  for  there  were 
not  many  young  men  to  be  seen  at  such  places  dur- 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  69 

ing  the  years  between  1862  and  1865,  for  more  than 
seventy  of  the  flower  of  our  manhood,  all  of  them 
in  the  prime  of  life,  were  away  with  the  armies  in 
the  South  ;  and,  while  many  a  woman  was  there  in 
her  person,  her  heart  was  with  her  loved  one  in  the 
tent,  on  the  march,  on  the  battlefield,  or  in  the  hos- 
pital far  away.  And  the  prayer  of  the  minister  was 
one  of  peculiar  tenderness  and  solicitude  for  the 
Kensington  soldiers.  He  asked  the  Father's  especial 
watchful  care  over  them,  that  they  might  be  spared 
to  return  to  their  homes  and  loved  ones,  and  the 
prayer  found  echoing  response  from  mother,  wife, 
sister  and  sweetheart,  for  they  were  all  there  and 
listened,  and  in  their  hearts  prayed  with  him. 

As  I  bring  this  little  true  home  story  to  its  close  I 
ask  myself,  and  I  wonder,  how  many  that  are  now 
living  remember  this  story  of  John  Pat  and  his  quin- 
tal of  mackerel?  All  too  few,  too  few. 

But  of  the  personal  characteristics,  brilliant  attain- 
ments and  splendid  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  of 
all  the  members  of  this  remarkable  family,  John  P., 
Samuel,  Sarah  and  Esther,  there  are  many  living 
who  knew  and  remember  them  as  I  have  recalled 
them,- who  know  that  they  wrought  zealously  for  the 
good  of  their  home,  their  church,  their  neighbor- 
hood and  their  town.  Yes,  each  and  all  gave  their 
whole-hearted  support  to  every  good  cause  and 
movement  in  their  native  town  for  a  great  many 
years.  And  they  lived  long,  and  the  world  was  the 
better  and  brighter  and  more  cheerful  for  their  being 
in  it.  And,  when  they  passed  to  the  realm  from 
whence  there  is  no  return,  and  we  saw  them  not,  we 
oft  called  up  from  the  storehouse  of  memory  their 


70  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

names,  as  I  am  now  doing,  and  in  the  recollection 
of  them  there  would  come  back,  as  there  now  comes 
back,  none  but  sweet  and  pleasant  memories  of  them. 
And  even  now  my  thoughts  linger  and  my  pen  hesi- 
tates to  put  down  the  words  that  ends  the  story  of 
the  parson's  donation  party  in  war  times. 

XII 

And  So  It  Is 

WHETHER  it  be  book  or  booklet,  large  or 
small,  of  few  chapters  or  many,  it  appears 
that  in  spite  of  the  author  there  is  inevitably  bound 
to  be  a  last  chapter;  and,  while  any  one  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  could  well  have  been  the  last,  the 
fact  seems  to  be  that  no  one  of  them  proved  to  be 
so.  The  real  reason  for  this  is  that  the  last  chapter 
was  left  for  the  telling  of  the  story  of 

The  Kensington  Brass  Band 

OF  this  band  it  can  be  said  that  it  was  recognized 
throughout  the  State  as  being  a  very  superior 
musical  organization;  and,  it  may  be  said  that  it  was 
at  the  zenith  of  its  fame  between  the  years  1856  and 
1861,  or  up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  It  can  also 
be  said  that  nearly  every  man  connected  with  the 
band  was  a  trained  musician,  and  well  he  might  be 
with  such  a  musical  genius  for  bandmaster  as  was 
John  V.  Hodgdon. 

Scarcely  from  my  own  knowledge  but  from  pa- 
ternal lips  and  others  '  I  have  learned  that  the  leader 


1  See  letter  and  stories  by  James  R.  Gray  in  addendum. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  71 

himself  played  the  E-flat  cornet,  that  William  F. 
Blake  and  Amos  Rowell  played  the  B-flat  cornets  — 
(what  a  golden  opportunity  that  would  have  been 
for  Judge  Shute)  ;  that  Samuel  Lamprey  played  the 
flute,  William  H.  Hodgdon  and  Warren  Hodgdon 
clarinets,  George  Blake  and  James  R.  Gray  B-flat 
tenor  horns,  Harvey  D.  Sanborn  and  Jackson  Shaw 
alto  horns,  William  Hilton  and  Stephen  Henry 
Brown  post-horns,  Thomas  H.  Blake  trombone,  Henry 
Crosby  a  French  horn,  James  W.  W.  Brown  a  bass 
horn,  Ferdinand  L.  Blake  and  Charles  E.  Batchelder 
double-bass  horns,  Franklin  Tilton  the  cymbals, 
Henry  T.  Blake  the  snare  drum,  and  Hyla  D. 
Peacock  the  bass  drum.  There  were  probably  others 
who  played  in  the  band,  but  the  foregoing  are  all 
the  names  that  come  to  the  author's  mind. 

Our  band  first  came  into  county-wide  notice  and 
prominence  during  the  presidential  campaign  of  1856, 
and  later  during  the  campaign  of  1860,  when  it 
furnished  music  at  political  gatherings  of  the  several 
political  parties. 

Probably  the  most  notable  of  these  political  meet- 
ings was  the  one  held  in  Greenland  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  Hon.  Albert  Blaisdell  (born  and  bred  in 
Kensington),  and  when  they  "raised"  a  flag  for 
Douglas  and  Johnson,  and  where  Gov.  John  S.  Wells 
was  the  chief  speaker  of  the  day.  The  band  also 
furnished  music  at  political  meetings  in  Kingston, 
Exeter,  Seabrook,  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  at  a 
political  "rally"  in  Portsmouth,  but  certainly  at 
Hampton,  where  the  democrats  had  a  great  meeting 
and  with  it  a  big  barbecue,  said  to  have  been  the 
largest  ever  held  in  the  State. 


72  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

But  the  one  great  event  in  the  band's  history, 
which  was  nonpartisan  and  nonsectarian  in  its  char- 
acter, was  the  great  Independence  Day  celebration 
given  under  its  own  management  on  July  4,  1859. 
The  scene  of  this  great  picnic,  as  they  called  it,  was 
laid  in  the  Newell  Healey  pasture  at  the  summit  of 
the  hill  over  which  runs  Pevear  Lane. 

On  the  south  side  of  this  "  Lane  "  there  stood,  at 
the  time  of  which  I  am  writing,  a  beautiful  grove  of 
middle  growth  pines,  which,  like  every  acre  of 
Healey's  farm,  was  free  from  all  foreign  or  noxious 
growth,  and  so  this  beautiful  growth  of  pines  were 
free  from  all  scraggy  undergrowth  —  thus  with  its 
perfect  carpet  of  pine  needles  it  was  an  ideal  spot 
for  placing  the  long  rows  of  tables  whereon  to  serve 
the  great  banquet  (as  oft  observed)  such  as  only 
"  the  famous  cooks  of  Kensington  "  could  prepare 
and  serve. 

After  the  feasting  the  people  sat  at  the  tables  in 
the  cool  of  the  shade  caused  by  the  closely  woven 
branches  of  the  sweetly  fragrant  pine,  and  listened 
to  the  Hon.  Alvah  Wood,  the  orator  of  the  day  and 
the  other  speakers  as  they  told  the  story  of  the  Rev- 
olution, of  the  "  poise  and  patience  "  of  Washington  ; 
of  Hancock,  of  Adams,  of  our  own  Governor  Josiah 
Bartlett ;  of  the  wisdom  of  Benjamin  Franklin  ;  of  the 
fervid  eloquence  of  Patrick  Henry  and  James  Otis,  and 
of  the  almost  divinely  inspired  genius  of  the  author  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  —  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son ;  and,  how  these  and  others  wrought  miracles  in 
the  council  chamber,  and  on  the  battle  fields,  as  we 
have  so  often  mentioned,  at  Concord,  Lexington, 
Bunker  Hill,  Valley  Forge,  Camden  and  Yorktown. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  73 

They  told  of  the  personal  heroism  of  the  everyday 
people  "  of  the  farm,  forge  and  mill,"  and  of  how 
they  suffered  and  endured  in  "  mind,  body  and 
purse  "  to  the  end  that  the  Colonies  "  might  be  Free 
and  Independent."  Yes,  the  story  they  told  that 
day  —  the  eighty-second  birthday  of  the  nation  — 
was  a  deeply  interesting  one,  for  the  patriot  fore- 
fathers of  many  who  listened  had  worn  the  buff  coat, 
and  had  carried  the  old  flintlock  musket  during  the 
long  days,  months  and  years  when,  as  Franklin  said, 
"  If  they  did  not  hang  together  they  would  hang  sep- 
arately." 

Ah  !  yes,  those  were  the  days  when  old-fashioned 
oratory  was  in  vogue,  and  appreciated.  But,  as  I 
have  said,  who  the  other  speakers  were,  alas,  there 
are  none  near  to  refresh  the  memory  of  the  teller  of 
the  tale.  And  yet,  at  the  last  moment  there  does 
come  to  mind  that  there  was  another  speaker,  a  sort 
of  half  crazy  fellow  by  the  name  of  Brocklebank, 
who  styled  himself  Joseph  of  old,  and  the  better  to 
prove  it  always  wore  a  coat  of  many  colors.  Being 
known  as  an  itinerant  orator,  and  known  far  and 
wide  throughout  the /county  as  a  "  crazy  coot"  with 
only  one  theme  —  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution  — 
to  lend  comedy  to  the  occasion  was  invited  to  speak 
along  with  the  others,  and  he  was  certainly  one  of 
the  funny  events  of  the  day. 

Regarding  other  and  more  specific  or  detailed 
events  of  the  day:  Even  though  too  small  to  "be 
there  "  I  yet  remember  that  the  citizens  formed  the 
procession  at  the  townhouse,  and  that,  headed  by 
the  band,  with  all  its  members  clothed  in  their  new, 
clean  and  bright  uniforms,  white  caps,  blue  coats  and 


74  RE-TOLD  TALES  OF  WAR  TIMES. 

white  trousers,  it  marched  down  through  the  "  city" 
and  up  the  Pevear  Lane  to  the  picnic  grounds,  play- 
ing lively  marching  music  as  it  went  over  the  route ; 
and,  we  know  that  it  played  many  stirring  and 
patriotic  airs  during  the  afternoon  and  evening. 

Nor  should  we  omit  recording  that  in  the  open 
pasture,  at  the  very  crown  of  the  hill  and  directly 
opposite  the  grove,  with  its  pine-canopied  tables,  and 
where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  banquet  was  served  and 
speeches  were  made,  a  large  cannon,  directly  under 
the  charge  of  Frank  Levering  and  Lewis  Gove,  was 
discharged  at  regular  intervals  from  noon  until  mid- 
night ;  nor,  must  we  forget  to  say  that  in  the  even- 
ing not  only  very  large  numbers  of  home  people,, 
but  great  numbers  of  visitors  "  from  all  the  country 
round  "  came  to  enjoy  the  very  great  display  of  fire- 
works provided.  Indeed,  in  those  days  they  never 
did  things  by  halves. 

Yes,  all  in  all,  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the 
Fourth  of  July,  1859,  was  the_  greatest  day  in  the 
history  of  Kensington. 

It  may  be  of  sufficient  interest  to  the  reader  to 
warrant  the  lengthening  of  the  story  to  mention  sev- 
eral of  the  individual  members  of  our  old  band,  men, 
who  later  served  their  country  in  its  military  bands 
during  the  Civil  War. 

The  older  generations  of  the  town  will  remember  that 
all  of  the  Hodgdons  were  accomplished  musicians, 
John  being  especially  so.  His  reputation  as  a  thorough 
musician,  and  especially  his  well  known  ability  and 
efficiency  as  a  bandmaster,  was  such  that  the  Gov- 
ernment, immediately  after  his  enl'istment,  assigned 
him  to  the  leadership  of  the  band  stationed  at  the 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  75 

Portsmouth  Navy  Yard.  Later  it  transferred  him  to 
Washington,  where  he  was  made  bandmaster  of  the 
band  now  known  throughout  the  world  as  the  Marine 
Band.  Amos  Rowell  was,  by  request  of  Mr.  Hodg- 
don,  assigned  first  to  Portsmouth  and  then  to  Wash- 
ington, and  played  under  Hodgdon,  and  under  his 
instruction  became  the  premier  cornet  soloist  of  the 
even  then  celebrated  band. 

Parenthetically,  I  may  say  again  that  this  band, 
under  the  leadership  of  Hodgdon,  furnished  the  mu- 
sic at  the  Soldiers  '  Home  in  Washington  during  the 
summers  of  war  time  because  of  the  fact  that  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  his  family  occupied  a  cottage  there 
during  that  period  of  the  year. 

I  recall,  as  a  pleasant  recollection,  that  Mr.  Eaton 
and  his  wife,  and  my  father  and  I  (the  boy  who 
served  the  President  as  a  special  telegraph  messenger 
during  the  week),  frequently  of  a  Sunday  afternoon 
walked  across  the  open  waste  lands  laying  between 
Columbia  College  Hospital  on  14th  street,  where  we 
made  our  home,  as  so  often  mentioned  in  this  little 
booklet,  to  the  said  Soldiers  '  Home,  on  7th  street, 
to  listen  to  the  music  rendered  by  this  the  best  of  all 
our  military  bands.  And  whenever  we  went  the 
reader  can  well  imagine  the  pride  we  felt  when  we 
saw  the  gentle,  low-voiced,  but  now  recognized  great 
musician,  our  townsman,  standing  in  front  of  and 
directing  his  players,  and  when  opportunity  permitted, 
in  his  quiet  way  beckoning  us  to  go  forward  to  shake 
hands  with  him.  Then  too,  to  have  warm-hearted 
Amos  Rowell  leave  his  place  and  come  forward  to 
the  rail  to  shake  hands  and  to  chat  with  us,  which, 
no  doubt  by  many  was  thought  to  be  a  very  great 


76  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

honor;  but  no,  we  did  not  think  of  it  in  that  sense, 
for  we  knew  that  our  meeting  together  thus  gave 
equal  pleasure  to  all  —  we  were  all  Kensington  folk. 

But,  later,  when  for  our  benefit  we  knew,  band- 
master Hodgdon  selected  a  piece  of  music  where  our 
dearly  loved  friend  Amos  played  the  cornet  solo  part, 
our  hearts  did  then  swell  with  pride,  surely.  When, 
for  an  encore,  he  played  "  Home,  Sweet  Home,"  Ah  ! 
then  it  was  that  heart-beats  were  faster,  and  more 
than  Kensington  tears  were  seen  to  flow. 

President  Lincoln  and  his  family,  in  their  cottage 
nearby,  we  knew  enjoyed  the  music  with  the  rest  of 
us,  but  I  am  sure  that  there  were  none  who  listened 
to  the  patriotic  airs  and  tender  folk-lore  melodies,- 
or  to  the  hearty  applause  bestowed  upon  the  band,  and 
especially  for  its  cornet  soloist,  felt  more  pardonable 
pride,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  merited  approbation  than 
was  felt  by  the  little  group  of  four  from  Kensington. 

I  have  said  that  the  musicians  were  greeted  with 
applause,  but  it  was  not  always  so,  for  after  listening 
to  such  melodies  as  "  Old  Kentucky  Home,"  "  Down 
on  the  Swanee  River,"  "  Auld  Lang  Syne,"  or 
"  Home,  Sweet  Home,"  the  hearts  of  the  soldier- 
boys  were  too  pentup  with  emotion  to  cheer;  no, 
their  eyes,  many  of  them,  were  wet  with  tears  and 
must  be  wiped  away.  Their  lips  trembled,  and,  as  I 
have  said,  their  hearts  weres  wollen  to  overflowing 
as  the  sweet  home  songs  carried  the  thoughts  of  all 
back  to  their  home  firesides,  "  to  father,  mother, 
wife,  children  and  sweetheart." 

But  these  two  men,  Hodgdon  and  Rowell,  were 
not  the  only  members  of  the  old  Kensington  Brass 
Band  who  served  their  country  in  its  military  bands 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  77 

during  the  war.  While  I  cannot  name  them  all  I  do 
recall  the  fact  that  immediately  after  they  enlisted 
these  men  were  assigned  to  various  regimental  and 
brigade  bands :  William  F.  Blake,  George  Blake, 
Henry  Crosby,  Charles  E.  Batchelder,  Ferdinand  L. 
Blake,  Stephen  Henry  Brown,  Samuel  Lamprey  and 
Henry  T.  Blake,  and,  as  I  have  said,  there  were  proba- 
bly some  others. 

Henry  T.  Blake,  the  former  drummer-boy,  and  the 
youngest  member  of  the  Kensington  Band,  as  he 
was  the  youngest  to  enlist  from  Kensington,  is  the 
only  one  living,  who  served  his  country  in  a  military 
band,  from  Kensington,  and  who  helped  to  make  the 
music  on  the  day  of  Kensington's  greatest  celebra- 
tion—  on  July  4,  1859. 

We  are  now  at  the  end  of  our  little  neighborhood 
stories  that  tell  of  the  soldiers  of  Kensington,  the 
men  who  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  as  patriots 
have  played  their  little  parts  for  the  good  of  the 
common  weal ;  helped  to  secure,  helped  to  main- 
tain, helped  to  preserve  conditions  in  our  own  be- 
loved State  and  country  that  makes  for  them  an 
asylum,  a  refuge  and  abiding  place  for  the  peoples 
of  the  earth  who  come  here  because  they  love  liberty 
and  justice,  apart  from  militarism,  and  because  they 
know  that  when  they  actually  renounce  their  former 
citizenship  and  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  our 
country,  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  they  will  re- 
ceive protection,  and  that  as  citizens  living  under  its 
protecting  folds  they  will  be  given  equal  opportunity 
under  the  law. 

That  God  may  bless  and  prosper  the  living  veter- 
ans for  whose  pleasure  this  little  booklet  has  been 


78  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

prepared,  and  help  us  all  to  cherish  and  keep  green 
the  memory  of  the  near  four  score  Kensington  sol- 
diers, their  comrades,  who  have  passed  and  been 
mustered  into  the  Great  Beyond,  is  the  prayer  of  the 

AUTHOR. 
THE  END. 
Montreal,  P.  Q., 
May  31,  1916. 


ADDENDUM 


*TpHE  teller  of  these  "tales"  long  since  discovered  that  while  the 
•*•  better  part  of  mankind  usually  put  the  best  and  most  interest- 
ing part  of  their  story  into  the  postscript,  the  other  part  more  fre* 
quently  spoil  theirs  by  the  adding  of  one.  However,  at  the  risk  of 
spoiling  all  that  has  gone  before,  a  few  pages  must  needs  be  added 
to  tell  of  a  recent  journey  and  of  calls  made  upon  a  few  old  soldier 
friends  in  Kensington  and  thereabouts. 

And  so,  as  this  journey  was  made  principally  to  see  and  have  a 
chat  with  the  few  remaining  old  veterans  of  the  Civil  War  and  their 
families,  I  will  not  mention  here  the  other  and  many  delightful  calls 
upon  friends  that  were  made. 

My  first  call  was  made  upon  Mr.  Joseph  N.  Austin  and  his  wife. 
Except  being  a  little  hard  of  hearing,  Mr.  Austin  I  found  to  be  in 
very  good  health.  Our  talk  was  a  long  one  and  reminiscent  not 
only  of  war  times,  but  of  "hand-turn  "  shoemaking  days,  when  the 
little  12  x  12  shoeshops  were  scattered  about  the  town,  and  all  so 
cheerfully  lighted  during  the  long  nights  of  winter;  of  how  the 
political  pot  was  kept  boiling,  and  the  game  played  every  day  in  the 
year;  of  the  singing  and  dancing  schools;  of  dances  and  "balls" 
and  picnics,  huskings,  donation-parties,  caucuses,  school  and  town 
meetings,  and  the  time  sped  all  too  quickly,  for  our  talk  had  been  a 
pleasant  one. 

Edward  Fellows,  a  brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Austin,  lives  nearby, 
and  I  found  him  in  most  excellent  health,  in  the  field  with  hoe  in 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  79 

hand.  Mr.  Fellows  is  a  widower.  His  wife  (as  a  girl  Isabel  Aus- 
tin), could  well  lay  claim  to  having  a  most  remarkable  personal  con- 
nection and  interest  in  the  Civil  War,  for  her  first  husband,  Mr. 
Amos  Rowell,  and  her  second  husband,  Mr.  Fellows,  were  both 
soldiers,  as  were  four  of  her  five  brothers.  Yes,  this  call,  I  am 
sure  was  a  pleasant  one  to  both. 

From  thence  it  was  but  a  short  drive  to  see  another  lovable  old 
veteran,  Mr.  James  W.  W.  Browrn,  whom  I  found  in  the  front 
yard  with  his  wife,  waiting  the  scribe's  coming,  it  almost  seemed. 
Mr.  Brown  having  recently  passed  through  a  serious  surgical  opera- 
tion, was  not  in  such  vigor  and  strength  physically  as  of  late  years,1 
but  we  had  a  good  long  talk  over  the  days  before  the  war,  when 
every  bug  was  a  most  beautiful  butterfly,  of  the  war  itself,  of  how 
he  shared  the  tent  with  my  uncle  "Bill"  Blake,  and  of  the  inter- 
vening years  since;  of  men  and  women,  of  things  and  events;  and, 
it  was  all  interesting,  mutually  so,  and  into  the  spirit  of  our  conver- 
sation Mrs.  Brown,  who  is  in  excellent  health,  fully  entered. 

How  delighted  the  traveler  would  have  been  to  have  seen  in  his 
old  home,  dear,  brilliant,  witty  and  versatile  Sam  Lamprey.  But 
alas!  he  had  long  since  joined  his  fathers. 

As  I  passed  by  I  thought  of  a  little  incident  that  took  place  in  our 
front  room  in  the  old  farmhouse  soon  after  he  had  enlisted  in  1862. 
He  had  been  over  to  Exeter,  and  wishing  to  remember  my  grand- 
mother with  a  friendship  token  before  he  went  to  the  war,  bought 
her  a  silk  handkerchief.  Now  it  so  happened  that  Sam  had  "  recip- 
rocated "  with  Exeter  friends  several  times,  and  therefore  was  feel- 
ing pretty  well  by  the  time  he  reached  our  house.  To  show  grand- 
marm  how  good  and  strong  his  gift  to  her  was  he  caught  the  hand- 
kerchief by  two  of  its  corners  and  snapped  it  vigorously  a  half  a 
dozen  times  and  with  increasing  force  each  time.  Grandmarm  and 
we  young  folk  were  greatly  pleased  over  the  performance,  and 
childlike  wanted  more,  which  Sam  proceeded  to  do;  but,  during 
the  interval,  or  while  he  rambled  on  with  his  story,  Sam  uncon- 
sciously caught  up  the  handkerchief  by  its  opposite  corners,  and  as 


1  On  the  8th  of  Nov.  (1916),  Mr.  Brown  passed  away  in  his  seventy-sixth 
year. 


80  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

the  last  previous  demonstration  had  been  of  such  force  as  to  cause 
wonderment,  not  only  to  the  young  folk  but  to  the  older  ones  as 
well,  when  he  was  ready  to  give  his  last  windup  demonstration 
all  were  on  hand  to  see  it.  Now  it  so  happened  that  because  of  the 
aforesaid  reciprocal  courtesies  betwixt  friends  at  Exeter,  or  it  may 
be  because  of  the  gentle  warmth  of  the  early  September  day,  Sam 
had  become  pretty  glib  of  tongue,  and  in  consequence  thereof  felt 
it  incumbent  upon  himself  to  make  a  speech,  and  he  proceeded  at 
once  to  make  one  of  the  witty  Sam  Lamprey  kind.  It  was 
given,  as  he  said,  to  elucidate  and  demonstrate  to  his  listeners 
wherein  and  why  anything  made  from  silk  was  of  such  strength  as 
to  defy  the  strength  of  man;  nothing  could  tear  it.  "Look!  " 
At  this  point  Sam  repeated  his  last  demonstration,  and  the  handker- 
chief came  apart  as  though  it  had  been  made  of  tissue  paper.  He 
had  this  time  tested  it  by  chance  the  wrong  way  of  the  grain.  Sam* 
never  opened  his  mouth. 

And  so  as  I  passed  by  his  old  home  I  could  but  smile  as  I  saw 
him  in  my  mind's  eye  tear  the  silk  souvenir  handkerchief  he  had 
given  to  grandmarm.  Though  Sam  never  gave  her  a  whole  one 
grandmarm  kept  the  two  parts  of  the  demonstration  handkerchief 
all  her  days.  Poor  Sam,  there  never  was  another  like  thee,  so 
witty,  brilliant,  attractive  and  so  lovable. 

Not  a  long  way  up  the  road,  and  we  come  to  the  old  manse  of 
the  late  Col.  John  T.  Blake,  whose  sons,  George  and  Henry  T. , 
were  both  good  soldiers.  The  elder  of  the  two,  George,  has  been 
dead  several  years,  but  Henry,  who  resides  in  Haverhill,  Mass., 
fortunately  was  visiting  his  niece  Esther,  in  his  old  home,  and  so  he 
and  I  enjoyed  the  telling  and  listening  to  many  an  old  tale  of  the  days 
when  he  played  the  snare  drum  in  the  old  Kensington  band. 

Charles  E.  Gove  was  the  next  war  veteran  to  see,  and  I  was  very 
glad  to  find  him  in  most  excellent  health.  The  writer  hopes  that 
it  will  long  continue  so,  and  that  the  smile  he  wore  on  the  day  we 
chatted  together  will  long  remain  a  comfort  to  him  and  pleasure  to 
his  friends.  I  am  happy  to  add  that  his  wife,  formerly  Annie  Fel- 
lows, is  also  in  good  health.  May  good  health  remain  and  be  with 
this  old  couple  these  many  years. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  81 

The  next  call  was  made  upon  Sophia,  widow  of  the  late  Lewis  E. 
Gove.  Mr.  Gove  being  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War  and  a  life-long 
intimate  friend  of  my  father,  I  had  anticipated  a  pleasant  visit  with 
Mrs.  Gove,  but  was  pained  to  learn  of  her  very  severe  illness,  and 
because  of  it  I  was  unable  to  greet  and  pay  my  respects  to  her  as  I 
had  fondly  wished.  I  sincerely  hope  that  health  and  strength  will 
come  back  to  this  dear  old  friend,  speedily. 

The  next  call  made  was  upon  Mr.  Weare  Nudd  Shaw,  "Soldier 
and  Sage  of  Orchard  Hill,"  the  man  of  marvelous  vitality,  both 
mental  and  physical.  As  illustrating  the  former  I  will  say  that  when 
I  entered  his  study  I  found  that  he  had  been  reading  the  Congres- 
sional Record  of  1856.  Thus  I  could  see  that  it  is  in  such  musty 
old  volumes  as  these  that  he  loves  to  delve,  and  from  out  of  which 
he  gleans  and  gives  to  his  large  numbers  of  readers  many  items  of 
historical  interest.  A  full  hour  was  spent  with  this  delightfully  in- 
teresting old  friend.  Knowing  that  I  had  been  for  some  time  seek- 
ing information  relative  to  the  part  Kensington  men  had  played  in 
our  several  wars,  he  gave  me  further  data  and  information,  and  I 
made  him  happy  by  giving  him  many  items  of  legendary  lore,  as  well 
as  not  a  few  historical  facts,  all  interesting  to  the  antiquarian.  Mr. 
Shaw's  large  farm  is  being  managed  by  one  of  his  sons,  and  with  his 
'house  being  managed  by  the  very  capable  wife  of  the  farmer-son, 
Mr.  Shaw,  without  thought  or  anxiety  concerning  the  "weather, 
crops  or  taxes, "  is  enjoying  most  excellent  health,  and  is  supremely 
happy  in  his  books,  his  writing,  and  in  his  hosts  of  friends.  May 
all  these  be  his  to  enjoy  yet  many  a  day  is  the  hope  of  his  admiring 
friend,  the  writer. 

With  a  good  horse,  and  over  the  new  modern  road  it  was  but  a 
short  drive  to  the  neighboring  town  of  Newton,  where  lives  Mr. 
Benj.  Frank  Austin,  one  of  the  youngest  of  the  Kensington  sol- 
diers, and  thither  I  went  to  see  him.  Though  it  had  been  many 
years  since  I  had  seen  him,  a  royal  welcome  was  extended  by  both 
this  young  old  veteran  and  his  wife.  Himself  in  full  vigor,  mentally 
and  physically,  and  his  life's  companion  equally  so,  it  was  indeed  a 
pleasure  to  spend  a  few  hours  with  them,  to  talk  over  school  days 
with  her,  of  the  days  when  he  wore  the  suit  of  blue  and  ate  hardtack 


82  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

and  "  salt-horse,"  the  days  when  it  was  to  take  quinine  and  whiskey 
copiously  or  suffer  the  devils  of  fever  and  ague,  to  suffer  the  evils  of 
the  camp  sutler,  of  the  suffering  from  rain,  snow  and  cold  that  came 
to  the  soldier  because  of  the  fearfully  inadequate  shelter  afforded  by 
the  small  army  tent,  of  the  forced  march,  the  battle,  the  hospital,  of 
the  death  of  comrades  and  their  burial  under  a  flag  of  truce  it  may 
be;  of  the  home-coming  and  hearty  welcome  at  the  door;  of  the 
shoemaking  days  in  the  little  12  x  12  shops  and  the  larger  shops 
later;  of  the  days  when  such  as  he  "a-sparking  went,"  of  the  mar- 
riage, the  children,  numbers  of  them,  and  now  all  well  and  well-to- 
do  in  the  world,  and  of  the  grandchildren,  too,  all  living  and  none 
missing.  Truly  this  dear  couple  have  much  to  be  thankful  for. 
May  God  bless  him,  and  them,  and  theirs,  and  such  as  they  are 
everywhere. 

A  little  way  down  the  road  lives  Mr.  Edward  Swett.  Mr.  Swett 
was  one  of  those  who  came  to  Kensington  from  East  Kingston  in 
1862  to  enlist.  As  a  soldier  his  record  was  clean.  -He  played  hi« 
part  well  and  truly  as  a  good  soldier  should,  served  his  full  three 
years  and  was  honorably  discharged.  Living  a  well-ordered  and 
regular  life  his  years  have  been  long  and  filled  with  contentment, 
which  we  are  told  is  akin  to  a  continual  feast. 

In  the  city  of  Lynn,  Mass.,  lives,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  meet, 
another  Kensington  boy,  one  who  enlisted  with  so  many  others  be- 
longing to  the  grand  old  town  in  1862,  Mr.  George  A.  Baston.  It 
may  be  said  here  that  out  of  the  seventy-two  Kensington  men  who 
served  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  there  were  but  three  who  went 
into  the  marine  corps  of  the  navy,  namely,  the  above  named  Mr. 
Baston,  George  A.  Cilley  and  Mr.  J.  LeRoy  Hilliard.  The  latter 
was  stricken  with  typhoid  fever  the  second  day  out  of  Portsmouth, 
and  was  buried  at  sea.  Mr.  Baston  served  his  full  term  of  enlist- 
ment of  three  years,  was  under  Farragut  in  the  naval  engagements 
before  New  Orleans,  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson,  and  was  on  the 
flagship  Hartford  in  the  great  battles  at  the  entrance  to  Mobile  Bay, 
August  5,  1864.  I  found  Mr.  Baston  in  excellent  health,  one  of 
the  best  preserved  of  the  Kensington  war  veterans. 
Mr.  James  R.  Gray 

The  reader  will  recall  that  James  R.  Gray  of  East  Kingston  was  a 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  83 

member  of  the  Kensington  brass  band  during  the  years  1853-61, 
and  that  he  was  a  soldier. 

Learning  that  Mr.  Gray  was  still  living,  and  in  Haverhill,  Mass., 
I  went  to  see  him.  While  Mr.  Gray  is  in  his  84th  year  his  genera} 
health  is  most  excellent.  To-day  he  is  still  wearing  his  city  con- 
stable's badge,  which  he  has  worn  over  thirty  years.  Mr.  Gray 
made  the  call  delightfully  pleasant  with  reminiscent  stories  about 
the  old  band  in  Kensington,  and  the  telling  of  his  experiences  in 
the  war.  While  much  could  be  put  down  that  he  said,  I  must  for- 
bear, and  yet  will  briefly  say  that  Mr.  Gray  was  a  sergeant  of  Co. 
C.,  Sixth  New  Hampshire  Regt.,  and  was  with  General  Grant  at 
the  siege  and  capture  of  Vicksburg,  July  4,  1863.  Being  Forage 
Master  of  the  Commissary  Department  of  the  Ninth  Corps  he  was 
detailed  to  take  into  the  city  food  and  medicine  for  the  half-starved 
people,  old  men,  women  and  children  (all  able-bodied  men  were  in 
the  Confederate  army),  which  he  did  with  six  six-mule  army  wagons, 
his  loads  being  made  up  of  quinine,  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  hard-tack, 
salt  pork  and  salt. 

Vicksburg  had  been  encircled  for  more  than  four  months  by 
General  Grant's  "chain  of  steel,"  and  to  illustrate  how  completely 
the  city  had  been  isolated  and  cut  off  from  the  outside  world  by  this 
chain  of  steel,  and  her  dire  needs  not  only  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
but  of  the  ordinary  business  necessities  the  Vickshurg  Daily  Citizen 
(J.  M.  Swords,  proprietor),  was  being  printed  on  the  back  side  of 
mighty  cheap  wallpaper.  Mr.  Gray,  riding  at  the  head  of  his  six-mule 
wagon  supply  train,  was  the  first  to  enter  the  city  (  General  Pem- 
berton  had  an  hour  before  surrendered  his  army  of  30,000  Confed- 
erates just  outside  of  the  city  proper )  he  secured  half  a  dozen 
copies  of  this  paper  fresh  from  the  press,  this  last  edition  printed  on 
wall  paper,  and  Mr.  Gray  possesses  to-day  one  copy  of  this  fifty- 
three  year-old  "  Johnny  Reb  "  daily  paper. 

Mr.  Gray  assenting  the  writer  copied  and  below  inserts  a  news 
item  and  an  editorial  or  two  from  this  remarkable  newspaper.  The 
paper  was  set  up  to  be  issued  on  July  2,  1863,  and  we  can  nonu  read 
with  a  smile,  though  it  were  cause  for  no  smiles  then,  what  the 
editor  says,  to  be  published  that  day,  under  the  caption  of 


84  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

"MULE  MEAT" 

We  are  indebted  to  Major  Gillespie  for  a  steak  of  Confederate 
beef  alias  meat.  We  have  tried  it,  and  can  assure  our  friends  that 
if  it  is  rendered  necessary,  they  need  have  no  scruples  at  eating  the 
meat.  It  is  sweet,  savory  and  tender,  and  so  long  as  we  have  a 
mule  left  we  are  satisfied  our  soldiers  will  be  content  to  subsist  on  it. 

In  another  column  and  directly  under  the  date  of  the  paper  (July 
2)  we  read  this: 

ON  DIT: — That  the  Great  Ulysses  —  the  Yankee  Generalis- 
simo, surnamed  Grant  —  has  expressed  his  intention  of  dining  in 
Vicksburg  on  Saturday  next,  and  celebrating  the  4th  of  July  by  a 
grand  dinner  and  so  forth.  When  asked  if  he  would  invite  General 
Jo  Johnston  to  join  him  he  said,  "  No!  for  fear  there  will  be  a  row 
at  table."  Ulysses  must  first  get  into  the  city  before  he  can  dine 
in  it.  The  way  to  cook  a  rabbit  is  "  first  to  catch  the  rabbit." 

It  is  evident  that  the  Daily  Citizen  did  not  leave  the  press  nor  was 
it  issued  on  the  day  of  its  date,  or  the  next  day,  for  there  appears  in 
the  last  column  of  the  one  sheet  paper  under  date  of  July  4,  tha, 
day  of  the  surrender,  what  appears  to  be  its  valedictory  editorial. 
Whether  written  by  its  own  editor  or  by  some  one  who  came  into 
the  city  with  the  conquerors,  the  next  to  the  last  sentence  throws 
doubt.  Here  it  is: 

"Two  days  bring  about  great  changes.  The  banner  of  the 
Union  floats  over  Vicksburg.  General  Grant  has  ' '  caught  the 
rabbit;  "  he  has  dined  in  Vicksburg,  and  he  did  bring  his  dinner 
with  him.  The  Citizen  lives  to  see  it.  For  the  last  time  it  appears 
on  "wall  paper."  No  more  will  it  imagine  the  luxury  of  mule 
meat  and  fricasseed  kitten,  urge  Southern  warriors  to  such  diet 
never  more.  This  is  the  last  "  wall  paper  "  edition,  and  is,  except- 
ing this  note,  from  the  types  as  we  found  them.  It  will  be  valuable 
hereafter  as  a  curiosity." 

Mr.  Gray  had  also  another  interesting  souvenir,  a  book  of  poems 
taken  from  the  city  residence  of  Jefferson  Davis  at  Jackson,  Miss., 
and,  he  related  many  another  story,  all  intensely  interesting,  but 
space  forbids  more.  The  letter  below  from  Mr.  Gray  is  breezy 
with  items  of  interest  of  the  days  of  the  Kensington  brass  band: 

Haverhill,  Mass.,  August  24,  1916. 
Mr.  H.  F.  Blake, 

Montreal,  Canada. 
My  dear  old  Friend: 

I  thank  you  for  sending  me  to  read  over  the  list  of  the 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  85 

names  of  the  members  of  the  old  Kensington  brass  band,  of  which, 
as  you  say,  I  was  a  member  during  the  years  from  1854  to  1861,  and 
I  think,  way  into  1862. 

Even  the  instruments  they  played,  as  I  remember  them,  were  very 
nearly,  if  not  exactly,  as  you  state  it. 

As  you  point  out  these  old-time  names,  these  friends  of  long  ago, 
they  all  come  back  to  me  as  though  but  yesterday;  and,  not  only 
the  instruments  they  played,  but  the  uniforms  they  wore  I  can  see 
also. 

Indeed,  I  well  remember  about  the  great  picnic  you  mention,  and 
even  remember  how  we  marched  down  through  the  "city"  at  the 
head  of  the  procession.  More  than  this,  I  remember  very  distinctly 
that  we  played  our  favorite  march,  "The  Norfolk  Guard,"  as  we 
passed  Tom  Blake's  store. 

I  must  correct  one  statement  that  you  make.  You  say  that  every 
member  of  the  band  was  a  "trained  musician  "  and  this  holds  good 
except  in  one  case.  Billy  Hilton  did  not  know  a  single  note, 
played  everything  "  by  ear,"  and  had  to  have  every  new  piece  played 
over  to  him  once,  and  only  once,  when  he  could  play  it  perfectly 
from  beginning  to  end.  Otherwise  your  statement  is  right,  for  every 
man  in  the  band  except  Billy  could  read  music  at  sight,  and  under 
such  a  bandmaster  as  John  V.  Hodgdon  we  could  not  help  being 
pretty  good  players. 

Henry  Blake,  our  old  drummer  boy,  and  I,  are  the  only  two  sur- 
vivors of  the  old  band,  the  old  Kensington  band,  so  far  as  I  know. 

Thanking  you  again  for  letting  me  look  over  the  list,  and  what 
you/ say  about  us,  I  remain, 

Yours  respectfully, 

JAMES  R.  GRAY. 

Lois  F.  Eaton 

The  reader  will  recall  that  it  was  stated  in  the  text  that  the  soldier, 
Mr.  John  L.  Eaton,  and  his  wife,  Lois  F.  Eaton,  both  from  Ken- 
sington, lived  in  a  tent  within  the  grounds  of  Columbia  College 
Hospital  in  Washington  in  war  times,  and  that  in  a  building  near  to 
their  tent  lived  another  soldier  and  a  boy,  the  "  messenger  boy,"  and 
that  these  two,  father  and  son,  were  also  from  Kensington. 

The  years  intervening  since  those  faroff  troublesome  days  of  war 
have  been  many.  It  has  been  many  years  since  the  soldier-husband 
passed  over  to  the  land  of  his  fathers,  but  his  young  soldier-bride, 
Lois,  is  still  living  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  good  health  and  the  com- 
panionship of  congenial  friends.  Learning  recently  of  her  where- 
abouts I  at  once  wrote  her  to  extend  felicitations,  and  was  greatly 


86  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

pleased  to  receive  a  long  and  interesting  letter  from  her,  which  I  take 
the  liberty  to  append  below.  The  Messenger  Boy  hopes  that  Lois 
will  live  to  enjoy  good  health  and  comradeship  these  many  years. 

Newfields,  N.  H.,  Sept.  3,  1916. 
Dear  Friend  Harold:  — 

I  have  your  letter  of  the  28th  of  August  and  I  am  very 
glad  to  hear  from  you.  It  is  a  long,  long  time  since  I  saw  you,  but 
I  remember,  I  shall  always  remember  you  as  the  messenger  boy  in 
Washington,  living  with  your  father  in  the  clean  whitewashed  build- 
ing in  the  grounds  of  Columbia  College  Hospital,  within  a  few  feet 
of  where  John  and  I  lived  in  a  large  new  tent. 

It  does  not  seem  but  a  little  while  ago  that  you  were  the  telegraph 
messenger,  and  rode  down  to  the  city  with  John  when  he  went  down 
as  Major  Crosby's  orderly,  to  the  city  to  bring  him  up  to  the  hos- 
pital, where  he  was  the  chief  man  in  charge,  and  how  you  rode  John's 
horse  down  every  morning.  Indeed,  I  read  your  stories  in  the  News- 
Letter  with  very  great  interest  and  they  brought  back  many  pleasant 
memories  of  the  old  war  days. 

I  remember,  as  though  it  was  but  yesterday,  the  night  your  father, 
John,  and  you  started  for  Ford's  Theatre,  and  how  disappointed  John 
was  because  of  being  detained  by  the  Major,  and  you  could  not  get 
away  earlier,  and  so  could  get  no  seats  at  Ford's,  and  how  you  all 
went  to  Grover's  Theatre.  And  that  very  night  President  Lincoln 
was  killed,  but  we  did  not  hear  of  it  until  next  morning.  All  these 
things  come  back  to  me  very  often.  I  remember  especially  how  we 
four  used  to  go  over  to  hear  the  band  play  at  the  Soldiers'  Home, 
and  how  John  Hodgdon  and  Amos  Rowell  always  saw  and  spoke  to 
us.  But  I  cannot  write  any  more.  I  should  like  very  much  to  see 
you  sometime,  but  if  I  do  not  see  you  I  want  to  thank  you  for  the 
letters  in  the  News-Letter. 

I  am  very  sorry  to  learn  of  your  mother's  death  recently.     She 
was  about  the  last  of  the  old  war  generation. 
Sincerely  yours, 

LOIS  F.  EATON. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  P.  M.  Green,  making  their  summer  home  at 
Hampton  Beach,  a  full  half  day  was  most  agreeably  spent  with  them 
there.  Mrs.  Green  before  her  marriage  was  Ruth  Ann  Rowell, 
they  being  Kensington  boy  and  girl,  and  both  friends  of  the  writer 
since  boyhood  days. 

Mr.  Green,  though  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  is  in  excellent 
health,  and  when  his  business  permits  spends  two  or  three  days  of 
each  week  in  the  summer  in  their  cottage  at  the  beach,  enjoying  the 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  87 

sport  that  goes  with  the  gun,  the  boat  and  fishing-tackle.  Mrs. 
Green,  except  being  lame  from  an  accident  some  years  ago,  is  the 
same  Ruth  Ann  her  friends  have  known  these  many  years.  Being 
a  sister  of  both  Amos  and  Edmund  Rowell,  both  mentioned  in  the 
text,  and  her  husband  —  all  three  wearing  their  suits  of  blue — she 
can  well  take  pride  in  what  her  menfolk  did  in  the  days  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  author  takes  pleasure  in  including  as  a  part  of  this 
little  volume  her  letter  below. 

Hampton  Beach,  N.  H.,  July  7,  1916. 
Mr.  Harold  F.  Blake, 

212  McGill  St., 
Montreal,  Ca. 
My  dear  Friend:  — 

Replying  to  yours  of  recent  date  concerning  my  brother 
Amos:  Yes,  you  are  right,  Amos  was  playing  in  the  orchestra  in 
Ford's  theatre  on  the  night  that  President  Lincoln  was  assassinated 
by  John  Wilkes  Booth. 

As  Amos  was  at  the  time  a  regular  member  of  the  Marine  Band, 
and  had  been  for  several  months,  I  think  that  he  may  have  been 
playing  in  the  theatre  orchestra  as  a  spare  player,  or  he  may  have 
been  employed  on  this  particular  occasion  of  the  presidential  party 
being  present.  However  this  may  be,  Amos  was  there  and  saw 
this  most  awful  wicked  tragedy  in  our  national  history. 

I  am  very  glad  that  I  am  able  to  confirm  your  impressions  in  this 
matter,  and  remain, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

RUTH  A.  GREEN. 

Completing  the  circle  and  we  were  over  in  Exeter.  As  I  have  in 
days  past  spent  many  a  pleasant  hour  with  "Beany,"  "Pewt," 
"Chitter,"  "Pozzy,"  "Skinny,"  "Fatty,"  "Whacker"  and 
"  Keene,"  "  Cele,"  "  Georgie,"  "  May  Luverin,"  "  Nell  Tole," 
"Jenny  Morrison"  and  others  of  his  schoolday  friends,  so  I  was 
very  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  call  upon  and  pay  my  respects  to 
their  friendly  biographer,  Judge  Henry  A.  Shute;  and  a  most  de- 
lightful visit  it  was  to  the  writer.  Judge  Shute,  may  his  magic  pen 
further  entertain  us,  make  us  and  keep  us  boys  and  girls  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter. 

From  thence  it  was  but  a  few  minutes'  walk  to  the  home  of  Cap- 
tain George  N.  Julian,  whose  war  time  experiences  I  have  already 
partly  told.  It  is  exceedingly  pleasant  to  record  that  the  writer 


88  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

found  Captain  Julian  physically  well  preserved,  and  mentally  as  keen 
and  alert  as  in  the  days  of  the  "kid  gloves,"  and  fife  and  drum. 
Interested  in  the  current  affairs  of  the  world  as  well  as  in  past  his- 
torical events,  his  declining  years  are  passing  pleasantly  in  his  large 
and  comfortable  home,  which,  since  the  death  of  his  devoted  though 
invalid  wife,  has  been  presided  over  by  his  eldest  daughter,  Miss 
Maud  V.,  and  further  to  add  to  the  comfort  of  his  mind  and  body, 
enjoying  the  daily  companionship  of  the  younger  daughter,  Miss 
Katherine  A.  And  so  it  is  that  'midst  his  books,  his  flowers  and 
his  friends  the  home  life  of  the  captain  is  ideal,  charmingly  so. 
May  all  the  days  of  his  life  be  pleasant  days  for  Captain  Julian. 

The  letter  printed  below,  containing  information,  as  it  does, 
both  of  historical  and  personal  interest  to  the  Kensington  soldiers, 
their  families  and  descendents,  I  take  pleasure  in  printing  it. 


Exeter,  N.  H.,  Sept.  7,  1916. 
Mr.  Harold  F.  Blake, 

Georgetown,  Mass. 
My  dear  Friend: 

Replying  to  your  letter  of  inquiry  concerning  my  going 
to  Kensington  for  recruits  for  my  company  in  the  Civil  War. 

To  make  it  all  clear  why  I  did  this  let  me  briefly  tell  what  led  up 
to  it. 

I  enlisted  for  one  year,  July  31,  1861,  and  was  mustered  into 
United  States  Service  as  a  private  in  the  Second  Battery,  Massachu- 
setts Light  Artillery,  known  as  Nims'  Battery,  Captain  Ormand  F. 
Nims  commanding,  and  was  mustered  out  at  'Baton  Rouge,  Louisi- 
ana, July  31,  "1862,  and  returned  to  Exeter  with  a  lieutenant's  com- 
mission in  my  pocket,  to  serve  in  some  New  Hampshire  regiment 
to  be  formed.  At  the  time  of  my  arrival  home  the  13th  New 
Hampshire  Regiment,  a  three  years  regiment,  was  being  organized, 
and  I  was  made  Captain  of  Company  E  in  this  regiment.  In  order 
to  obtain  the  captaincy,  however,  I  had  to  get  men  enough  to  form 
a  company.  This  I  was  able  to  do  between  July  31,  and  Sept.  27, 
1862.  While  engaged  in  this  work,  hearing  that  your  father  was  re- 
cruiting a  good  many  Kensington  men,  I  went  over  there  and  with 
his  assistance  secured  five  men,  namely  Joseph  N.  Austin,  Stephen 
llil^y— flfl^5Q£David  C.  Smith,  Rufus  Eastman  and  George  A. 
Cilret.  ,L 

A^nAMter  of  information  I  will  add  a  line  or  two  to  say  that 
Mr.  Austin  was  discharged  from  service  for'  disability  March  10, 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  89 

1863,  and  Mr.  Smith  for  disability  March  5,  1863.  Mr.  Cilley  was 
transferred  to  the  navy  April  28,  1864  (date  of  his  discharge  un- 
known). Mr.  Brown  was  transferred  to  Brigade  Band  January  20, 
1863  and  was  discharged  from  the  service  for  disability  July  10,  1863. 
Mr.  Eastman  served  to  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  enlistment  June 
21,  1865. 

I  was  myself  discharged  at  the  expiration  of  my  three  year  enlist- 
ment, and  thus  you  see  that  I  served  four  years  in  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion. 

These  things  all  happened  a  long,  long  time  ago,  Mr.  Blake, 
and  yet  it  all  seems  but  yesterday.  Indeed,  among  other  things  I 
recall  that  I  was  at  your  father's  home  one  day  near  the  dinner  hour, 
that  your  mother  invited  me  to  stop  to  dinner,  which  I  did,  and  that 
with  a  young  man's  appetite,  greatly  enjoyed  your  mother's  dinner 
of  roast  chicken,  new  potatoes  and  green  corn. 

All  these  be  but  trifles,  it  may  be,  but  yet  it  is  of  such  as  these 
that  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  made  up. 

1  hope  that  I  have  covered  the  points  you  mention  in  your  es- 
teemed letter  of  inquiry,  and  I  remain, 

Most  cordially  yours, 

GEORGE  N.  JULIAN. 

From  the  home  of  Captain  Julian  to  that  of  Mr.  Andrew  J.  Fogg 
was  but  a  few  steps.  The  end  of  these  journeyings,  wearisome  no 
doubt  even  to  the  few  who  have  tried  to  journey  with  me,  had  now 
come,  the  last  doorbell  rung.  But  here,  as  in  all  places,  I  was  given 
a  most  hearty  welcome  by  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fogg,  he  in  black 
frock  coat  and  she  in  "  old  lace  and  lavender,"  and  wearing  her  hair 
in  neat  and  finely  curled  ringlets. 

In  the  company  of  this  most  interesting  couple  and  their  niece, 
Mrs.  Doctor  Pray,  I  enjoyed  a  full  hour  of  pleasant  conversation, 
and  replete  it  was  with  reminiscence,  facts  and  fancies.  Mr.  Fogg 
told  of  the  old  war-time  business  conditions,  of  the  war  itself,  of 
how  he  enlisted  and  was  commissioned  a  Second  Lieutenant  in  1862, 
how,  being  incapacitated  from  military  service,  he  was  honorably 
discharged  in  1863,  how  he  returned  to  Exeter  and  in  that  year 
formed  a  partnership  with  Mr.  Fellows,  and  that  during  that  same 
year  they  issued  a  lot  of  paper  money,  the  "  shinpl&fefi'^crTp.t  "  or 
paper  currency  used  in  war-times,  as  stated  in  the  St8ry;<>f  "The 
Parson's  Donation  Party  in  War  Times."  I  wonder  If  >tne«e  is 
another  man  living  in  New  Hampshire  who  issued  such  money? 


90  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Yes,  it  was  pleasant  and  the  time  passed,  as  it  had  so  many  times 
before  on  this  little  pilgrimage,  all  too  quickly,  he  telling  of  the 
war  and  of  business  conditions  in  those  times,  of  politics  and  politi- 
cians and  of  things  that  interest  men,  she  telling  and  I  listening,  and 
he  too,  to  the  little  stories  of  life,  domestic  and  human,  all  so  dear 
to  the  feminine  heart.  No,  she  did  not  talk  of  either  war  or  busi- 
ness except  as  they  were  incidentals  to  their  long  years  of  married 
life. 

These  are  some  of  the  things  she  told,  and  she  told  them  because 
they  were  dear  to  her,  as  such  things  are  dear  to  all,  though  only 
the  woman  can  tell  them.  She  said  Mr.  Fogg  was  born  in  Exeter, 
November  19,  1831,  that  her  maiden  name  was  Mary  E.  Willis, 
and  that  she  was  born  in  Exeter,  February  20,  1842,  that  they  were 
married  in  Exeter,  November  9,  1859,  that  they  had  two  children, 
Charles  and  Frederick,  but  both  had  died  in  their  youth,  that  they 
had  celebrated  their  golden  wedding  November  9,  1909,  that  they* 
had  always  lived  in  Exeter,  that  both  had  always  been  contented 
there,  that  they  were  now  enjoying  their  declining  years  in  the  com- 
pany of  their  niece,  Mrs.  Pray,  and  that  all  these  blessings  had  come, 
to  them  in  their  dear  old  native  town  of  Exeter. 

No,  these  little  interesting  items  were  not  all  given  at  once,  but 
naively  told  at  odd  times,  as  the  man  of  the  house  finished  what  he 
was  saying,  and  thus  gave  her  opportunity. 

And  so  this  my  last  call  in  Exeter,  the  last  one  of  the  pilgrimage, 
was  not  only  one  that  gave  me  a  great  deal  of  information  but  also 
one  of  rare  entertainment  as  well.  Indeed  the  quiet  and  peaceful 
scenes  in  this  home,  like  those  witnessed  in  that  of  Captain  Julian, 
will  long  be  remembered  with  feelings  of  supreme  pleasure.  That 
both  health  and  comfort  shall  abide  within  the  gates  of  both  is  the 
prayer  of  the 

AUTHOR. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  91 

AN  AFTERTHOUGHT 

or 
Why  the  Re-told  Tales  at  All 

SOME  two  years  ago,  my  mother,  then  visiting  me  in  Montreal, 
Canada,  and  I  spent  many  an  evening  in  talking  about  the  old 
Kensington  days,  of  the  days  of  her  childhood,  girlhood,  maiden- 
hood, wifehood,  motherhood  and  widowhood,  of  ten  thousand 
things  to  make  merry  laughter,  of  the  comparatively  few  that  made 
for  sadness.  And  so  it  was  that  all  winter  through,  the  long  even- 
ings were  made  delightfully  pleasant  by  the  telling  of  the  old  tales, 
legend  and  history,  fact,  fiction  and  everyday  gossip  even,  that  was 
current  in  the  old  days  in  Kensington,  Hampton  Falls,  Seabrook 
and  other  towns  nearby. 

Mother  was  endowed  with  a  very  strong,  vigorous  and  forceful 
intellect,  a  very  tenacious  memory,  and  to  a  very  high  degree  had 
also  the  gift  of  mimicry.  Possessing  these  three  essentials  she  was 
a  good  story-teller.  To  the  many  stories  she  told  of  men  and 
women,  of  things  and  events,  I  could  add  not  a  few  of  my  own. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  one  evening  towards  spring,  after  an 
unusual  number  of  stories  of  the  days  in  Kensington  when  "  Goosey  " 
Palmer,  "Turkey"  Tilton  and  "Chicken"  Blake  made  weekly 
trips  to  Boston,  each  with  his  two-horse  wagon-load  of  meat,  poul- 
try, butter,  cheese,  eggs,  fruit  and  vegetables,  when  for  eight 
months  of  the  year  the  working  day  for  the  farmer  and  the  farmer's 
wife  were  17  hours  long;  of  the  days  of  the  brick  oven,  of  baked 
beans,  both  hot  and  cold,  of  bean  porridge,  of  fried  salt  pork  every 
morning,  with  apple,  of  "fried  Injun  pudden,"  of  rye  pancakes 
and  pure  maple  syrup,  or  old-fashioned  boiled  cider  apple  sauce  dur- 
ing all  the  cold  months  of  the  year,  of  the  home-made  cheese, 
sausages  and  candles,  and  when  the  home  grown  corn,  whey  and 
milk  fed  hogs  were  killed  and  their  hams  and  shoulders  were  smoked 
with  the  sweet  corn  cobs  in  the  big  chimney.  Of  the  days  of 
"  Squire  "  Hilton  and  Elsie  Hoig,  of  Jerry  Poor  and  Mrs.  Jenkins, 
of  Gard  Clifford  and  Polly  Ann  Brown,  of  "Squire"  Shaw  and 
Betty  Greenleaf,  of  Mrs.  Winckley,  who  wore  the  breeches,  of 
Joe  Poor,  with  his  tuning  fork,  Dr.  Williams,  with  his  calomel, 


92  RE-TOLD   TALES    OF   WAR   TIMES. 

Dr.  Brown,  with  his  ipecac,  and  Dr.  Osgood,  with  his  lambkill. 
Of  the  days  when  Thomas  Whittemore  preached  to  the  Universal- 
ists  twice  each  Sunday,  and  at  "meridian,"  between  sermons  as  it 
were,  with  his  host  drank  a  glass  of  "hot  toddy"  and  later  in  the 
day  quaffed  both  "  stirrup-cup  "  and  "night-cap"  from  the  glasses 
placed  upon  the  wooden  trencher,  as  the  custom  was.  Of  the  days 
of  Billy  Hilton  and  his  fiddle,  huskings,  donation  and  quilting 
parties  and  barn-raisings,  of  Albert  Chase  at  his  forge  and  Jonty 
Tuck  in  his  tan-pits,  when  John  Nudd  was  the  cooper,  John  Blais- 
dell  the  stone-mason,  "Tilt"  Blake,  Jerry  Blake  and  Joe  Tilton 
the  carpenters,  and  John  Davis,  the  basket-maker.  Of  the  days 
and  events  leading  up  to  the  Civil  War,  of  the  war  itself  and  of  the 
years  following. 

When  she  had  finished  saying  these  things  she  stopped  and 
abruptly  said:  "But  who  of  the  coming  generations  will  tell  of 
these  things?  Who  will  tell  about  your  father  and  Uncle  Bill,  oj; 
Lewis  and  Captain  Gove,  of  George  and  Henry  Blake,  of  Nute, 
Jim,  Frank  and  Ed  Austin,  of  Bill,  John  and  Warren  Hodgdon, 
of  Charles  and  Henry  Tuck,  Jerry  and  Joe  Tilton,  of  Jim  Brown, 
Ed  Fellows,  Amos  and  Ed  Rowell,  of  Sam  Lamprey,  Weare  Nudd 
and  Jack  Shaw,  of  Harvey  Sanborn,  Charles  E.  and  Albert  A.  Batch- 
elder,  of  Johnny  Shaw  and  Hen  Crosby,  of  the  Hilliards,  Prescotts, 
Rowes  and  Wadleighs,  and  all  the  rest?  Someone  ought  to  do  this! 
Do  it  before  it  is  too  late!  Why  —  don't  —  you  —  do — it?  " 

And  it  came  to  pass  that  I  found  myself  asking  the  question, 
"Why  not?" 

And  her  answer  came  when  she  saw  printed  in  the  Exeter  News- 
Letter  some  of  the  stories  we  had  told  each  other  during  the  long 
winter  evenings  in  Montreal,  and  none  enjoyed  the  reading  of  them 
as  she  did.  But  alas !  not  for  a  great  while  could  she  enjoy  them  as 
of  old. 

Returning  to  her  home  in  Lynn.  Mass.,  her  daughters  arranged  a 
birthday  party  for  her,  her  eighty-fifth  natal  day.  This  took  place 
on  May  27,  1916,  she  entering  into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion 
heartily,  and  apparently  in  her  usual  health.  Sitting  in  the  seat  of 
honor  she  cut  and  passed  her  cake  to  her  numerous  children,  grand- 
children and  other  kith  and  kin  who  had  gathered  to  do  her  honor. 


HAROLD    F.    BLAKE.  93 

Though  the  day  was  one  of  unalloyed  pleasure  to  her  and  to  those 
about  her,  alas!  it  proved  to  be  the  last  gala  day  for  her,  for  in  a 
few  days,  to  the  surprise  of  all,  she  lay  down  upon  her  bed  for  the 
last  time,  weary,  weak  and  worn.  The  journey,  eighty-five  years, 
had  been  a  long  one,  and  as  with  all  mothers,  many  of  her  days  had 
been  days  of  labor;  ay,  of  pain  and  suffering  that  her  children  might 
live;  but  they  were  now  soon  numbered.  She  lingered  but  a  few 
short  weeks  and  then  the  end,  she  passing  away  August  24,  1916. 

I  am  taking  pains  to  tell  these  things  to  you,  my  dear  old  soldier 
friends,  for  this  reason:  Though  you  had  asked  me  many  times  in 
years  gone  by  to  tell  your  story,  it  is  but  just  for  me  to  say  that  had 
my  mother  passed  away  a  few  months  earlier,  or  had  she  not  made 
the  visit  to  Montreal,  alone  in  her  eighty-fourth  year,  and  there 
with  me  enjoyed  the  telling  and  listening  to  the  old  Kensington 
stories,  only  a  few  of  which  are  to  be  found  within  these  covers, 
and  she  had  not  asked  the  question:  "  Why  don't  you  do  it?  "  then 
there  would  have  been  no  "reminiscent  stories"  told  in  the  News- 
Letter,  nor  this  booklet  printed;  and,  therefore,  the  Author  can  well 
and  truthfully  say  that  if  any  pleasure  or  profit  shall  come  to  the 
readers  of  these  re-told  tales  full  credit,  therefore,  belonged  to  the 
soldier's  widow,  my  dear  mother,  Mary  C.  Blake. 

THE  END. 


DATE  DUE 


IHIIIMIll  Hill  Hill"1"" 

A     000  478  928     5 


